


Gra'tua Cuun Hett Su Dralshy'a (Our Vengeance Burns Brighter Still)

by ViableExcuse



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Republic Commando Series - Karen Traviss
Genre: Backstory, Mandalorian, Mandalorian Culture, Pre-Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, Pre-Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Pre-Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2020-01-23 09:33:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 41,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18547072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViableExcuse/pseuds/ViableExcuse
Summary: A young Mandalorian warrior learns the hard way that even the strongest warriors can fall given the right circumstances. Through the bloody massacre that left nothing but blood and wrath, a new avenger is born. And her vengeance burns bright enough to blind their arch nemesis, and her vengeance burns bright enough to smite the hapless monastics.Features original characters. Part of Republic Commando 'verse.





	1. Fresh Snow, Old Faces

It was a sunny day on Vinuu Four.  
The white landscape glistened in the light of the system star, its powdery cover slowly giving way to the strengthening rays of warmth. Spring was coming.

Aran straightened her back. She felt stiff after staying in position this long, but she wouldn’t risk relocating now. All the back-tracking, leaving false trails and wiping her footprints would be for nothing.

A furry little creature resembling a womp-rat ranged through the snow, randomly sticking its pointy nose into the cold powder to sniff out food. From time to time it would stand on its hind legs, its watchful eyes looking for potential threats to its life.

If the creature knew how easily she could pin it in place with a casual flick of her wrist... She let her gloved hand rest on the hilt of her very own hunting knife. Buir had pulled some strings, and when some of their group had returned from a supply run she had held her very first personal weapon in hands. She had then practiced knife-throwing to the point of tenditis; hitting a distant cousin of the Womp-rat approximately one and a half meters away was hardly a challenge. Aran barely contained a chuckle; spooking the little critter wasn’t an option, as it would likely draw attention to her. Her concern was unnecessary, though. The creature would probably not even notice her if she were to guffaw like a maniac, given that she didn’t move too much through the act. Her helmet system was completely soundproof when she muted the external speakers, buir had promised her that.

She kept watching the little guy for some time. It was fun to track the erratic scurrying across the small glade. She noticed the animal’s high attention levels when even a leaf caught by a breeze made it scatter back to the underbrush, which offered less than stellar protection with its naked twigs and branchwood.  
“Stupid little thing”, she muttered under her breath. How could it not notice its open position? Even a half-blind akk would have no trouble spotting it.  
Her attention snapped to the little critter once again, when it whipped its tiny head around to look in her direction. Its brownish fur puffed up, making it look like a slightly less pathetic ball of fluff. Aran supposed that was this species’ aggressive behaviour, meant to intimidate predators into leaving it alone. Or maybe the tiny thing was only cold. Speaking of which- She was forever thankful for the thermo- kute her mother had made her wear under the armour. Her buir could be a nagging pain in the shebs at times, but she never meant bad. And Aran respected that, even though the others kept going about how much of an insolent brat she could be at times. Her mother had decades of experience, and whatever she shared with Aran was filed and sorted to be used at the right moment. But that wouldn’t keep her from occasionally testing her boundaries.

Aran abruptly snapped back to the here and now, when the tiny ball of fluff began screeching all of a sudden. Five other brownish spheres of fur emerged from the snow and simultaneously scurried away, shrieking in fear.  
Aran had only just about enough time to think Shab!, before she was shoved to the ground. Her assailant held her arm up high behind her back, and trying to wrestle herself free soon proved to be fruitless.  
“Should’ve focused on your surroundings instead of being distracted by critters, ad’ika. I’m disappointed, really. I expected more from you.” The glee in his voice was unmistakable.  
Aran grimaced. Nearly five hours of careful approach and mindful set-up- Gone up in flames. And all this just because she’d been distracted by a measly critter. Her pride took a hefty blow right then and there.  
“Yeah, yeah. You’ve won this round, Uvai. Now let me go. You’re dislocating my dikut’la shoulder.” Pain arched through her arm when she tried to turn her body to face her assailant.

She could hear the smirk in his distorted voice when he leaned down and his silver-rimmed t-shaped visor came into view. “We’re not quite finished yet. You know what’s next, eh?”

The young man finally let go of her arm and Aran gracelessly stumbled onto her feet, still miffed that she had lost this easily and all because of a stupid rookie mistake. “Ugh”, she snorted while rolling her arm to get the feeling back in, “You want to fight right here?”  
He nodded enthusiastically, pointing between him and her mud brown and green armoured self. “You versus me, ad’ika. Just a quick spar to round off the training.”

Meaning no weapons, no nothing. Through gritted teeth she replied, “Fine.” They both took on fighting stances, feet apart and knees stilted, their fists held in a streetfighter’s defense in front of their faces obscured by black t-visors. When she didn’t move apart from the light spring in her knees, Uvai made the first move.  
He dealt a few blows Aran easily dodged, but they weren’t meant to hit her in the first place. He had to aim downwards, that’s how big the difference in height was. After a few moments, as if he’d been bored before, he dealt a wide, swinging right hook and left himself foolishly open. Aran would’ve gone for the gap, but she knew her sparring partner. Uvai liked to trick his opponent into going for the obvious gap in his defense, only to viciously retaliate when the other did least expect it. Grinning in anticipation, Aran feinted a punch at his chest plate, knowing full well his next move. Just as Uvai struck forward with his left fist, Aran dropped to the ground and kicked at his leg. He made a hasty step backwards, and at the exact moment one foot left the ground, Aran swept out the other one. Uvai lost his footing, grunting when his behind impacted the now mushy ground. Their shuffling around had loosened the snow and ground below it, forming a sloppy mix of muddy consistency.  
Aran jumped him, knowing full well this was her only easy opportunity to strike the finishing blow to her physically superior opponent. Her armoured fist almost struck him square in the chest, but Uvai was quick to deflect the blow. He brought up his arms and the punch Aran had put all of her weight into scraped over his armoured underarms. The force of her blow and the lack of the expected impact sent her stumbling over him. She quickly pulled her knees in and segued into a roll, just as Uvai followed up with a blow aimed at her chestplate. The roll had made him miss his target, so instead of taking a full-on punch to the chest, the whole power behind the blow struck her in the shoulder. She was knocked down, hard, but determined not to let him win this round too.

She had Uvai exactly where she wanted him.

She lightly got to her feet, not too badly fazed by his nearly fight-ending blow. Aran entertained no illusions about her chances: If Uvai were to land a direct hit on her throat, buy’ce or similarly exposed extremities, she was going down.  
So she had let him play with her as he pleased, all the while coming closer to victory with every step of circling.

He had been so focused on her, he hadn’t noticed Aran sneakily dropping specially hardened combat wire.  
When she felt it was the right moment, she grabbed the thin wire and pulled with all of her strength. Admittedly not much in comparison to him (she still waited for the necessary growth spurt), but certainly enough to take him down.  
Uvai let out a surprised yelp the second his feet left the ground. Almost in slow motion he planked in the air and then crashed to the ground in a graceless heap of thermo-suit and armour. Aran didn’t waste a single second of precious surprise and rushed to position herself atop his legs, her fist raised high above his private parts. She couldn’t help the satisfied, almost smug tone in her voice, when she announced, “Victory secured, Uv’ika.”  
A moment passed in silence. Uvai was apparently contemplating fighting back, but quickly decided against it when he spotted her armoured fist’s dangerous proximity to the most precious parts of his anatomy. The fight seeped from his body, and he let his helmeted head fall back into the snow. “Okay, okay, I know you want to hear it from my mouth. You win.”  
Aran couldn’t help but teasing him just a little bit.“You could always consider adoption. It’s Mandalorian tradition, you know.”  
He chuckled, his arms dropping to either side of his torso. “Good job, ad’ika.”  
Aran stood up and removed her helmet in one fluid motion. Grinning, she held out her hand to her fallen sparring partner. “Come on up, ner vod. We have to get back to camp quickly so you don’t conveniently forget to mention the match like last time I beat you.”  
He took her hand gladly, gripping her elbow in the traditional Mandalorian handshake. It was a symbol of the bond between two Mando’ade, a grip strong enough to pull another Mando to safety, if need be. “Me tripping over some convenient tree roots and bumping my shabla head on a rock does certainly not count as ‘victory’, little one.”

She rolled her eyes at him exasperatedly. Uvai was a good man, her ner vod in the most precise meaning of the word, but he was every bit as stubborn as a bantha, unwilling to relent and graze on another patch of field just a few meters over.  
Hence her mother chose him to train her equally stubborn daughter.

“This was a good one, Ar’ika. You knew you couldn’t beat me with physical strength, so you used your wits and equipment to take me down.” He clapped her shoulder in an amiable gesture of good will. “I must say, I’m impressed. I didn’t even notice you unspooling the wire. You managed to draw my focus to something else the entire fight.”

Aran crossed her arms, smirking up at him. “Well, I learned from the best.”  
Uvai raised an eyebrow, snorting in amusement. “Don’t lay it on thick, ad’ika. I won’t go easy on you just because you flatter me until my mirshe drips out of my ears.”

“I wasn’t talking about you, di’kut,” Aran chuckled lightly. “At least not only you. You know buir is an expert hand-to-hand combatant, don’t you?”  
Her mother had taught her the basic rules of fighting and survival. She had underwent shooting training since she could stand straight and hold a blaster. The combat drills had never stopped since then. Survival training was even more fun. Reading trails, leaving false trails to confuse pursuers, hunting, finding water, detecting easily defensible positions to hole up in for as long as necessary- buir had helped her on the right way to become a capable Mando warrior. But even more importantly her mother had ingrained the Mandalorian values into her heart and soul. Aran had been raised according to the resol’nare, the six central tenents to Mandalorian life. She spoke Mando’a fluently, had been raised with the language, and proudly wore the handcrafted and formfitting forest green and rust brown beskar’gam her mother had gifted her at her eight birthday, when she had firstly been allowed to accompany her on a mission.  
It wasn’t a real beskar’gam; that option had been too expensive just then. No, instead of Mandalorian iron they had opted for an alloy made from durasteel and a handful of other components. The resulting metal was both protective and lighter than your typical durasteel armour plating, but nothing compared to the almost unnoticeable light beskar many Mandos had crafted their beskar’gam from. She was going to don a real beskar’gam sooner or later, but right now she chose better equipment and weaponry over the infamous metal. 

Like any self-respecting Mando’ad Aran would not hesitate a second should the Mand’alor call upon his trusted warriors, no, she would gladly be the second in line behind Jango Fett to storm into battle against their enemies. Even though the man would probably grab her by the collar and stop her short. He was of the opinion that a certain capability of self-defense was necessary to fight on the front lines, a capability she apparently still lacked in his eyes. Yes, she was only 14 standard years old and stood at a measly 160 cm tall, but she had wits. That she had proven time and time again in spars with her willing partners. Somewhere in the back of her mind Aran knew that even her wits hadn’t always saved her from defeat, but she quickly pushed the notion back where it belonged. Insecurity about her own capabilities was nothing of use for her. She needed a strong will and confidence in her abilities. Strength in mind was never to be underestimated. A body could be broken, but the mind of a true Mandalorian would never break.

Her mother always emphasized that. Keep your blades sharp, but your mind sharper.  
It was a good motto to go by.

Now that the ‘outdoors’ part of training was over, they made their way back to camp. Aran had long since put on her buy’ce again. Despite the bright star high up in the blue winter sky, the winds of Vinuu Four were still freezing, and she had no intention of letting the cold breeze congeal her face. A running nose and the necessity to near constantly wear a helmet didn’t go well with each other.

Their trek back to camp led them past conifers, bare shrubs and then some more conifers. At least the tree’s evergreen provided some badly needed cover, however poor it might be.

They had walked in companionable silence for quite some time, when Aran felt the need to start a conversation. She flicked her finger against Uvai’s armoured gauntlet, or rather the flamethrower mounted on it, its steely silver a stark contrast against the dark red of the gauntlet. The young Mando dipped his deep red coloured helmet in her direction, unsure of her intention. Sighing, Aran activated the private helmet-to-helmet comlink. She was sure there was no one to overhear the two of them, but one could never be safe enough. Arrogance and blind trust had led too many warriors of the past into certain death.  
“So, when do you think my buir is going to allow me to get one of these?” Her very own flamethrower was number two on her most wanted weaponry list, only succeeded by her own, pure Mandalorian iron beskad. “I can’t wait to fry the stupid critters that blew my cover back there”, she added jokingly.

Uvai gently pushed her gloved hand away from his gauntlet. “Eh, try to be accurate with a blaster first before moving up to the next big frontier, ad’ika”, he reprimanded, his tone not unkind. “I’m sure you’ll get one soon enough. Just be patient”, he added in mockery of a voice she imagined wise old aruetiise to use constantly when they felt they needed to prove some kind of ridiculous fancied ‘superiority’.

“Pffft”, Aran grunted, pursing her lips behind her t-visor, “You could at least let me practice with yours, so I’ll be prepared when I get my own.”  
She knew she sounded like a sulky toddler, complaining and getting all huffy, but she wanted a chance to prove herself already. How was anyone going to accept her as a warrior, if she wasn’t allowed to have her own weapons? She didn’t even have her very own blaster yet. Buir let her use hers, yeah, but earning your own weaponry, the gear of her line of occupation, so to say, was an entirely different matter. It would be her way to improve, to learn and take care of her stuff on her own. No excuses. If a weapon failed, it was no one’s fault but her own. She could earn her own keepings and contribute to the community, if they just let her.

The crunching of snow next to her let off, when Uvai stopped all of a sudden.  
She stopped as well, turning her head to look at him. Even though she couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark visor, she knew he was watching her intently. If you grew up around people wearing full body armour all the time, you learned to read people’s body language. You noticed the smallest changes of stance and the slightest muscle contractions. And Uvai’s body language told her he was going to lecture her. Again.  
“Aran. There is no straight way to earn respect. And neither should other people’s opinion about you be your only driving force. You have to go your own way, do what you feel is right, no matter what others try to tell you.” He put a hand on her shoulder, clearly a gesture of good will. “I don’t mean to imply that you shouldn’t heed to other people’s suggestions, or at least listen to their advice, as there’s no better way to improve yourself than picking the cherries off of other’s experiences. So listen closely to my advice: No matter what you believe to know, you are respected, and the time will come where you’ll fight right next to me and the others on the front lines. Learn and savour your training, and you’ll not be disappointed.”

Aran didn’t know what to respond, so she just nodded slowly. How could Uvai, barely seven years her senior, be so much worldly-wiser and more mindful then her?  
Her respect for him sky-rocketed once more. He wasn’t a member of Jango’s small circle of trusted Mando’ade for no reason.  
What would she do without him? He was her sparring partner, her guide on a personal level, her mentor, her vod.  
And she had never before seen that more clearly than at this moment, standing on the edge of a bleak tree line on a backwoods Outer Rim planet, ankle-deep in snow.  
Her heart swollen with glowing pride, she was happy beyond description. She had her aliit, and that was all she would ever need.

“K’olar! I want to get back before the sun sets, or Ularane sics her smelly little furball on our heels.” Uvai turned, his dark brown cape fluttering with the energy of the motion, and trudged onward, as if their little eye-to-eye talk hadn’t happened.

Aran shook her head, smiling under the anonymity of her buy’ce.  
Emotion and their display were an integral part to Mandalorian culture, but so was the ability to bottle everything up and get on with business as usual.  
She still cherished his words, though, and vowed to take them to heart. And she was sure he knew Aran wouldn’t mindlessly put his little speech behind her.

“Yeah, wouldn’t want that to happen, eh?”, she chuckled while catching up to him with three fast steps.  
Ularane was a modest woman, even though she had made a piece of fekkin’ art out of her forest green armour by adorning it with pieces of bone, teeth and even strands of hair of the unlucky chakaare crossing her path. Well, hers and that of her strill. The beast’s strong jaws could crush bones without it breaking a sweat. And it would probably sit and make golden puppy eyes at you all the while.  
Strills had become notably rare as companions for Mando’ade, and Aran couldn’t recall the last time she had seen one apart from Ularane’s six-legged furball. She thought it sad to see the dwindling numbers of Mandalore’s number one predator animal. It was a sad reflection of their people’s recent troubles.

Ever since the Civil War had broken out between Jaster Mereel, his True Mandalorians and the Kyr’tsad, a deranged splinter group whose self-proclaimed aim was to ‘restore Mandalore’s long lost traditions’, the Mandalorian people had suffered from the blasphemous infighting. And the fight was still going on, even though the Death Watch appeared to entertain the traditional tactic of ba’slan shev’la, strategic disappearance, as there hadn’t been a sign of them in recent times. Jango and his community of Mandalorian warriors lusted for a confrontation with the dar’manda hut’uune to bring them to justice for what they’d done to Mereel, and subsequently the Mandalorian people, by initiating the Civil War and creating a deep rift right through the heart of Manda’yaim.

It was only a matter of time before some dikut’la aruetiise tried to use the disruption to their advantage and weaken Mandalore even more.  
Thankfully they’d managed to stay off the Republic’s radar so far. There was no telling in what would happen should the bigwig of Galactic politics decide to interfere and strike down one of its deadliest opponents in galactic history.  
And the idiotic Death Watch would have brought about the destruction of Mandalore’s people. Fekkin’ di’kute. Mandalore had never been more vulnerable than right now, but the current Mand’alor Jango Fett did everything in his power to change that.

“Uvai, when the contract on this planet is accomplished, where do you think the alor is going to lead us next?“, Aran spoke up, just as the camp came into view.

Several small plumes of smoke sidled their way into the cold dusk air above the encampment. A dozen plain tents strung together in a rough emulation of a half circle formed a small square, barely enough free space to set up some freight crates and a pile of smaller storage buckets of varying forms and sizes.

It felt- homey, despite the fact they’d only been here in this arrangement for two weeks. There weren’t even all their people present. Ularane’s brother Grannit had returned to Mandalore on his own, some problem with his friend’s sister-in-law or something, and a handful of others had different things to tend to and had skipped their current contract. It wasn’t too bad, her buir had chuckled. ‘This way there’ll be more credits to share with fewer people.’  
She had a pragmatic streak, once in a while seeing the need to argue for the best in a situation.

“Only the manda knows where the alor will let us drift to next, ad’ika”, Uvai rambled mockingly. “This being said, we’ve not even completed the contract yet. So settle for another week or so before we leave this freezing ball of snow and ice.” His dislike of the Outer Rim planet resounded in the slightly deeper tone of his voice, clearly audible for the ears of someone who knew him well.

Aran didn’t hesitate in voicing her own rather disapproving opinion on their current location. “Yeah, I am just short of killing something for a little less snow. I never imagined staying in the cold hemisphere to be quite as annoying before we stumbled over this manda-forsaken pile of rubble.” She threw her hands up in a dismissive gesture. “Now that I think of it, why in haran does the alor need so long to complete a simple mission like this?”

There was a click in her comlink, as someone entered their near private talk; Her little outburst seemed to have caught her another listener. “Is there cause for alarm, or why are you in such a state of agitation?”  
The distorted voice was not exactly scornful, but Aran knew full well that she was in for some more lecturing.  
A person clad in copper coloured beskar’gam emerged from the tent nearest to Uvai and her, the beaded cords adorning a beskad sheathed behind their back swinging lightly from the motion.  
“Buir! I haven’t seen you coming.” Aran tried to keep the surprise out of her voice, but Yusani knew every facet of her only child. There was no escape now.

“Don’t even try.” Her mother shook her head, but her voice let off a vaguely perceptible notion of amusement. Aran cocked her head at that, her eyes narrowing. It was just like her mother to try and catch her off-guard, only to poke fun at her.

Unaware of her daughter’s internal pouting, Yusani continued. “So, has he”, here she indicated Uvai with a nod of her helmeted head,”kicked your shebs again?”  
Now her voice was laced with amusement.   
Gauging from her tone how the conversation was going, Aran decided to take of her helmet, keeping it locked under her arm. There was no need for secrecy now that they were among their aliit.

“Actually”, she started before Uvai could do anything more than snort,”The little di’kut here underestimated me.” She crossed her arms, feeling her confidence boasted by how both Uvai’s and her mother’s hands now lay on her shoulders, tightening in a silent gesture of commendation.

“Kandosii! Good job, ad’ika.” Her mother’s voice sung of her joy. Not a second did she doubt Aran’s ability to beat Uvai, who stood at a physically imposing two meters and then some tall.  
The pure, unaltered trust of her beloved buir let Aran stand a little straighter. No matter how hardened she tried to appear on the outside, praise from her only remaining parent would always make the young girl glow in pride.

“Yeah, the little shabuir tricked me good, Yusani”, Uvai praised delightedly, after taking off his helmet as well. “Watch out for her, she fights dirty”, he chuckled in amusement.

Aran smirked at that. Yeah, fighting ‘dirty’ wasn’t considered honourable among most cultures of the galaxy. But honour wasn’t something she sought, at least not the aruetiise understanding of the word. In a battle over life and death your opponent didn’t give a crap whether you fought ‘honourably’ or not. The only thing that mattered was survival. That was another one of her mother’s pieces of advice, and it had served generations of their people well.

Yusani put her hands on her hips, her whole body shaking, just as bellowing laughter echoed out of her external helmet speakers. “Like a true Viszla!”

Aran couldn’t help grinning widely. Her mother had been adopted into Clan Viszla in early childhood, and since then she had been raised by her parents to be like any member of the Mandalorian culture should be brought up like: She had learned to honour the Resol’nare, unlike a few members of the clan led astray by one Tor Viszla, and vowed to raise her children according to the central rule set of Mando culture as well. She had married young, her husband stemming from Clan Viszla as well.

They had been a happy couple, sharing their love for bladed weaponry, and their mutual hatred for gihaal had once been the cause of a great pyre short of making everyone gag in a seven hundred meter radius. But after Aran had been born and the pair had accumulated just enough revenue to settle down on Mandalore instead of living a warrior’s nomadic live style, problems started to arise. Yusani’s husband Maast Viszla had insisted on taking on contracts as guns for hire for an Outer Rim government in a local conflict, to ‘relive the warrior past’. Soon after Yusani had grudgingly accepted, he refurbished his helmet to look nothing like the usual Mandalorian Supercommando one. It was only a matter of weeks then before he fancied a deep red stylized Mandalorian shriek-hawk on his chest plate and asked her to join Kyr’tsad, for it was time to establish a new Mandalorian Empire and bring Manda’yaim back to its former glory.

Her mother had divorced him right then and there, chasing him off with the typical fury Mando women were feared for -and rightfully so-, cursing herself for not catching onto his intentions sooner. He had always spoken a tad too benevolent about Tor, the disgrace of Clan Viszla, the hut’uun who had instigated a bloody civil war and in the end even murdered their Mand’alor Jaster Mereel.

Yusani had never told her what had become of her biological father afterwards, just that he was dar’manda and cause for the highest possible disgrace. She was sure to describe in bright and colourful detail how she was going to deal with him, should he ever cross paths with her again.

Aran herself couldn’t remember much about him, only that he had the same auburn mop of wavy hair Aran had wrestled under her buy’ce for as long as she could think. She had divorced Maast as well, declaring him dar’buir and bringing him the greatest possible shame a Mando’ad could fathom.

He may have sired her, but he most definitely wasn’t her father.

Not after betraying their family by joining Death Watch. No, the few living members of her mother’s clan had taken on the role of family for the longest time. Them and whatever Mando’ade her mother had brought along. They were all family, aliit.  
She never missed her biological father.  
How could she, when she had literally dozens of excellent, not-hut’uunla ba’voduse to her free choosing?

To honour her now passed on adoptive parents and their legacy, Yusani sported the Clan’s crest on her chest plate, the black emblem contrasting beautifully with the other cream coloured patches she had painted onto her beskar’gam. Aran had followed suit, the golden clan crest proudly worn on display adorning her helmet just above the visor.

Neither of them had any intention of the millennia-old emblem wasting away to the point where it became the mere symbol of a less than osik terror organization.

Uvai let go of Aran’s shoulder, looking at her with a warm shimmer in his eyes. She couldn’t help but look back at him, overflowing with the joy to be alive and graced with the company of people like him, her vod.  
The moment was lost, however, when Yusani beckoned them further into camp, her traditional kama swishing in between her steps. “You hungry, ad’ike? The stew has been bubbling all day, so the meat must be tender to the point of melting on you tongue.”

“Sure, why not?”, Aran confided, pulling Uvai along with her. The young man had no other choice but to follow up, lest he wanted to faceplant into the snow-mud mix ranging from one end of the camp to the other. Dozens of armoured boots a day would do that to any soil.

Aran proceeded to fill three crummy wooden bowls with the hearty soup. In the meantime Uvai had used his arms to clear them some seats on the wooden crates laying about.  
Just when Aran dipped her spoon into the cream-coloured semi-liquid, its albeit hefty smell already making her salivate -no wonder, she hadn’t eaten since Uvai and her had set out to start their training exercise this morning-, her mother decided to take a former topic up again. She poked at Aran with her gloved finger, winking conspiratorially, before speaking in a stage-whisper, “You wanna elaborate on that ‘dirty trick’ you played on little Uv’ika here? I think it’s been an awfully long time since we’ve had some fun of the Viszla kind around here.” Her eyes sparkled with glee when the victim of her fun-poking looked up, pouting like a teenage boy, a role he still easily slipped back into. “Not fair, Yusani! Do you really think anyone would want two of you little devils running around, sharing your troublemaker tricks and making everyone’s daily life harder?”  
He sounded about as thrilled as any self-respecting member of their community would at the prospect of Yusani and Aran working together and playing pranks on everyone in their downtime.

Aran let them continue their mock-argument and focused on the steaming stew in her hands again, snorting in amusement. If the aruetiise catch wind of this conversation, our reputation as fearless, merciless warriors, built up by our forefathers for millennia, will go up in flames.

Now that she thought about it, it sounded even more ridiculous. Aruetiise would fear them regardless of the ludicrousness of their conversations. They feared everything they didn’t understand. Even in a galaxy with thousands of species and countless diverse cultures they were intimidated by beings whose face they couldn’t see. As if facial expressions were the only thing to go by. As if they couldn’t be manipulated through sheer force of will and many other means. 

Though Aran hypothesized that wasn’t even the critical factor.

No, aruetiise didn’t only fear what they couldn’t see. They were even more so afraid of what they couldn’t understand.  
Mandalorian culture with its tightly woven family structures, its blind eye towards past deeds, its complete and willful ignorance towards species, gender, age or former reputation of an individual was not fathomable for many people. They could comprehend the deliberate isolation from galactic events and the strong focus on traditions with simultaneously high technological advancement about as much as the colourful Mandalorian tongue, unchanged since the first day other than a few additions to the vocabulary.

An ordinary citizen of the Galactic Republic would never see the fortune in a simple life in a family association on Manda’yaim. Nor would the poor unfortunate soul from a backwater Outer Rim planet, turning over every credit just to keep the nek-wolf from the door. Their interpretation of the term was coined solely on material goods. While no Mando would ever turn down a shiny credit or two, the true value of life could only be found in aliit, and one was encouraged to do everything in one’s power to savour this state of fortune for as long as possible.

But who was Aran to pride herself on knowing aruetiise world views?  
Even though many Mando’ade would disagree with her on that part: One couldn’t colour everyone with the same brush. Her own beloved buir had come from an aruetiise background. Certainly there were more than enough people willing to see the good in the Mando way of life, given the same choice.

A friendly nudge in the shoulder alerted Aran to Uvai, who had apparently finished eating and got right back into training sergeant mode. “So. Hands on weapons now?” He wiped his hands on the thermo-suit he wore under his armour and stood up, a full stomach apparently equaled a Mando full of zest for action. Yusani put down her bowl and leaned forward. “Yeah, good idea. It’s not even dusk yet, and Aran needs to be working to capacity. I don’t want her to fall behind on her regimen.” With a clap on his shoulder she added joyfully, “Make her sweat, Uv’ika.”

Aran was fairly sure there was never too much training, but she wasn’t in the mood for blaster accuracy practice now.

“How about one of you lend me your ‘throwers?” Noting two similar expressions of reluctance, she pouted. “Aw, come on, you can’t place trust and pride in me and then behave like that.” Why was it so hard to convince them to let her use one of those shabla things?

Uvai and Yusani exchanged looks. “Uh, I recon it’s not the best idea to practice with a flamethrower near camp or easily flammable, dried-out foliage like the stuff we’re surrounded by”, Uvai managed, not sounding too convincing. “Besides, I recall you having quite the... pyromaniac streak. Maybe someone more experienced than me could watch over you as well, that way we’d make sure-”

Aran had been about to interrupt his pitiful attempt a deflecting, her arms crossed and eyebrow already raised, but her mother beat her to it.

“I believe it’s been an awfully long time since we last practiced beskad usage in combat, eh, ad’ika?”

Maybe torching some furry critters could wait. “Ori’kandosii! I’ll just go fetch my blade, buir!”

Noting her excitement with a grin, Yusani continued to smile fondly, as if reminiscing something precious to her.   
Uvai however seemed relieved to be let off the hook for now. He picked up his buy’ce and nodded at Yusani. “I’ll go catch up with the others. Good luck, Yu’buir. You’ll need it.” Winking, he added, “Two opponents fighting dirty like a spice-smuggler might make for an interesting spar.”

“Get lost, or it’s going to be a two on one, mir’sheb.” The words may have sounded harsh, but Yusani’s voice was friendly.  
Aran snorted in amusement. “Stop threatening the poor guy, buir. He looks like a scared akk pup with those wide eyes of his.” She saluted Uvai lightly, shouting a “Ret’!” over her shoulder, as she turned to jog back to her and her mother’s tent.  
She pushed aside the leathery tent flap and made her way over to the plain sea chest they used to store their personal supplementary weaponry, extra power packs and the odd explosive device. The ground wasn’t the same muddy mess as outside. It -thankfully- was still frozen solid, and considering the distinct lack of melting snow, it was gonna stay that way.  
The stupid snow-mud littering the campsite ensured everyone was extra careful not to accidentally drop anything, or one was sure to forcibly waste time by scrubbing it clean again. Aran herself had encountered that problem personally not so long ago, when she had dropped the carbine she’d been carrying at that moment after crossing the path of two Mando’ade that carried a heavy crate in a joint venture. Neither had expected the opposite to be where they were, and so they had clumsily bumped into each other. Aran had stumbled, the carbine gliding out of her still too small hands at the impact. The wet splosh resounding only a second later had made her roll her eyes skyward. Here go my plans for going hunting with Ularane and goldy-eyes.  
She had been busy cleaning every single slot and gap on the shorter cousin of the A280 blaster rifle for quite some time, when Yusani had come around and decided it was time to clean the rest of their weaponry as well, which had marked the end of her day.

Aran snapped the lid of the chest open. After reaching around for a moment she retrieved the sword she used for training, swirling it around in a practiced motion. The weight of the used blade felt familiar in her hands, as she had fought with it many times against her mother in training. She’d need a better one for real combat though. The durasteel wasn’t durable enough to hold up for long when only sparring, and she wouldn’t put her trust in a cheap training blade that was sure to break once osik really hit the fan. Something like her mother’s handcrafted curved beskad was far superior, both in weight distribution and durability. Sure, a good blade like that was pricey, but undoubtedly worth the coin. There were rarely second chances in their profession, and she was going to do anything to gain an advantage, how slight it may be. Good equipment was in the best scenario her ticket to wealth and riches (which she was going to spend on better equipment in turn), and in the worst possible scenario insurance for a continued life.  
The perks of vastly superior weaponry were easily recognizable by the dents in the training blade, openly on display like ugly scars in the matted blade.

She would’ve already invested in a nice beskad or better yet a sweet, sweet beskar’gam made from the material itself, the range finder she had always wanted and an updated heads up display included.  
She sighed.  
Perhaps after this contract was completed, her mother was paid for her contribution and they relocated, she could take part in one of the less easy, hence better paid missions.

She was gonna get that beskad and beskar’gam, sooner or later.


	2. A New Hunt

"Udesii, udesii, ad'ika. That's enough for today."

Yusani blocked the last barrage of vicious slashes directed at her trying to look like it wasn't a big deal. But Aran picked up on the slightly ragged breath her mother tried to reign under control without it showing on the outside. Her voice processor was of good quality and it was simple enough to discern the difference between easy breathing and forcibly controlled calmness accurately, a perk of living with people wearing helmets nine out of ten times.

Aran sheathed her blade and held her arm out for her mother to hold in the Mandalorian handshake. Yusani accepted gracefully, putting her own weapon away in the process.

"Good footwork, but your technique could be more refined", she suggested with a nod." You leave yourself too open. It makes it easy for an enemy to either disarm you or even go for your chest."

Aran grimaced. So buir had noticed.

"Will do. What about the shoulder tackle?" It had seemed like a good idea to bodycheck her mother in the heat of the moment, to throw her off-guard, but Aran had come dangerously close to her opponent. Had it been worth the risk? It might've been too much, in light of her mother's well-meant criticism.

"My, you surprised me there, hotshot! I recon it could've gone both ways, though. A real enemy might've reacted fast enough and clipped you instead of being dazed by the tackle."

"So no close-quarters combat?"

Yusani clapped Aran's shoulder and motioned for her to follow.

"I didn't say that. I believe it might be a good surprise attack to break your opponent's roots when he least expects it, say, when he has the upper hand in a duel. But you have to be really sure of yourself and your abilities to pull it off accordingly, ad'ika."

The surrounding evergreen trees rustled mysteriously in the wind, their peaks jabbing into the star-spangled night sky like snow-glazed spears.

Aran looked to the ground, where her armored boots sank into the snow with every step. Shortly after they had started their training session it had started snowing again, and the additional powdery white substance made it hard to judge the depth of the already fallen snow.

"I'll keep it in mind. Vor'e, buir."

She sidestepped a suspicious dent in the snow, only sparing the potentially fallacious sinkhole a sidelong glance.

Hm, she seemingly needed to focus on her defense. A good defense was irreplaceable for the fighter specializing in sword combat. Well, another option would be to trust entirely on her offense. A good offense is the best defense, as the saying goes.

Whatever she should choose, combat practice was going to be cranked up by a good chunk. The movements had to become second nature. There simply was no time to think about her course of action in combat.

They trudged through camp, slowly making their way towards the central tent, a place of organization, sportive leisure time and companionship alike.

The sun had finally gone down, and darkness descended upon the campsite. Nobody had any need for lighting; There was no individual around that didn't possess a night vision option for their integrated HUD. Some of their non-human companions even had the advantage of natural night vision.

When Aran focused on the tent, she noticed the slight flicker of flames emanating from the gap between the tent and the door flap.

The stew had to be kept warm, but did they really need a flame as bright and big as this? What had happened to their focus on stealth? There surely wasn't someone who dared start a confrontation with the dozens of Mando'ade from their camp on this backwater snow ball, but the principle was still to be upheld.

"Seems like something happened, eh?", her mother remarked. Aran only grunted noncomittally. Whatever it was, they weren't going to stand by idly.

She led the way and held open the door flap for Aran. When they had entered, she was provided with an image she couldn't have foreseen.

The tent was full of armoured individuals, most of them huddled around the current Mand'alor Jango Fett, who hovered close to the fire. Despite the relative silence -only the alor and the two closest to him seemed to be in deep discussion, while the rest listened- Aran could feel the heavy pressure in the air. Something was not right.

Why was the alor even back in camp? The contract had not been fulfilled as of yet, and Jango Fett had insisted on handling the closing part himself. Unless there had been a fairly surprising breakthrough - not entirely impossible, she reckoned - he shouldn't be here right now.

A click in their comlinks. "Ah, good to see you here."

Uvai had appeared from the mass of people and nodded his helmeted head at them.

"What happened? Is the contract fulfilled?", Aran inquired, restlessly shifting aside, when her mother moved further into the room.

"The short version", Uvai started, almost whispering, "Goes as follows: The alor and his troop got back early this time to discuss something important with us."

Aran tipped her head to one side like an inquisitive akk pup. "They apparently delayed the contract for it, it's gotta be really important."

Uvai led them further to the front. They stopped just three meters short of Myles, a young human male with an ice blue paint job on his armour, Jango Fett's second in command.

She bumped into a Mando's arm, so Aran turned and nodded her head in silent apology. The stocky human male in bronze armour, Sundavar, Aran recalled, nodded back, focusing back on the discussion in front of him shortly after.

Uvai continued, oblivious to the little exchange. "I don't know what this all is about, but I believe to have overheard the word Viszla."

Aran felt her mother stiffen. She inconspicuously took her hand and squeezed. It wouldn't do good if Yusani stormed to their leader and demanded details.  
"Udesii. Just listen", she suggested, moving aside to make room for her.

When she was sure buir's attention was focused on the people speaking, Aran allowed herself to relax slightly.

The thirst for payback against Tor Viszla and her ex-husband Maast hadn't let off over time. Given the Kyr'tsad's murder of former Mand'alor Jaster Mereel, most True Mandalorians would love to get their hands on one of the heads of the vicious splinter group. But Yusani was burning for a chance to exact her very own personal vengeance on a certain chakaar who had blown apart her life with his treacherous ideas.

Aran wasn't sure about her own motivation to destroy the group that had sent their people into civil war. A mix of Yusani and any other righteous Mando'ad's motivation, she guessed.

She couldn't really hate the man who had sired her; not as much as her mother, anyway. She had simply been too young to remember, too young for the hot vengeance to bubble up every time the name "Viszla" fell without her mother or her in context. She just felt kind of indifferent.

Yusani audibly ground her teeth. The feedback resounding in her earpiece made Aran wince. "If they managed to track down that gutless chakaar I will be the one to greet him. Wanted to introduce the rusty part of my trusty beskad to his stinking guts for a long time..."

"Udesii, buir." If they had really rooted out that bunch of cowards, would the alor even let them be part of the hunt? Convincing Yusani to stand down and observe from the sidelines wouldn't be easy… if possible at all. She wouldn't let herself be denied revenge she felt was in dire need.

Just as her internal trouble of figuring out how to slip a sedative into her mother's food to keep her from endangering someone in her blind rage ended up at a dead end, the alor scratched the back of his head, shuffling the unruly black hair out of the way, and addressed the entirety of Mando'ade present with a simple, "We've found them."

It's all he had to say to make an entire tent jam-packed with hardened warriors go from attentive silence to tense stillness.

Aran let her gaze wander through the rows of armoured individuals.

She spotted too many clenched fists to call the sudden tension in the air mere imagination.

"We've found Death Watch." Fett now turned towards them, buy'ce tucked under his left arm. "We've found them and now we will end them." His statement had more of a strill's growl than Aran would like to think about. It spoke of unprecedented violence.

The alor had known Jaster Mereel personally, had practically been raised by him as if he was Mereel's son, even though they had never officially recited the traditional vow of adoption.

Jaster Mereel's death had ripped a hole in the True Mandalorians' heart, but Fett must've been hit the hardest by his mentor's violent passing.

He was going to do anything it took to prevent the miserable hut'uune responsible for Mereel's death and the current crisis of Mandalore from gaining any more power. No Mando in his right mind doubted that.

One of the men present, the Mando'ad Aran had accidentally bumped into earlier, broke the strained silence and spoke up.

"I take it you have a plan, then?"

Fett grinned darkly, his eyes glistening with stubborn determination and the promise of imminent fiery vengeance.

Instead of answering the question, he indicated his lieutenant Myles. The young man stepped forward, nodding at Sundavar before answering, "We'll send an advance party to check the intel. When it's confirmed it's really the Kyr'tsad, the rest will follow and we will burn out the nest of hut'uun'la scum." Myles' voice was level, calm even, but he visibly tensed up at the mention of their arch nemesis' call sign, cracking his knuckles and gripping his ice-blue helmet tightly.

"We should act immediately, then." Sundavar apparently spoke the mind of many others with that statement. A lot of heads nodded curtly in approval of his urgency.

There was no time to be wasted.

If they'd really found the Death Watch, it was only a matter of days before they relocated and their trail went cold again. The Kyr'tsad employed similar tactics and embraced the nomadic life style the True Mandalorians had almost uniformly adopted through Mereel's redefinition of the Resol'nare. And they were similarly good at hiding their trails.

"I'm quite aware of the urgency of the situation", the alor interjected, his voice still bearing remnants of the barely restrained wrath from before.

Aran frowned. Fett usually was better at concealing his true feelings. Perhaps it was too emotional a matter for him to keep everything locked away, especially when he was among his people.

"It's incredibly important to keep a cool head when dealing with these shabla hut'uune, and not all of us are capable of that."

His dark gaze lingered on Yusani and Aran. It was only a second, miss if you blink, but Aran spotted it. And it was okay. They were high risk to any mission aiming to destroy their foes once and for all. She was still too inexperienced to be trusted with one of the most important, if not the most important missions in recent times, and her mother… Well, buir was a whole 'nother story.

"That's why we've already decided on who is to go. Sundavar, you take Ularane, Gareth, Daala, Seiba, Si'nube and the group around Tayari to the Carlac system."

Said man nodded his understanding, his hand already intertwined with his wife's. Ularane's light-furred strill scurried around their legs like an overly excited akk-pup, leaving a wet trail of viscuous drool in its wake, and the nearest men took two steps back to get out of the little hover-bulldozer's range.

Not many Mandos in their immediate vicinity had kept their helmets in their hands after the furry killing-machine had rushed into the tent to its partner's side. Aran had often enough heard the complaints of the male members of their group about the predator. Apparently it was supposed to have quite the strong odor, but she had never found the strill's natural smell as vile as the men made it out to be. In fact, she didn't remember any female of their camp ever complaining about it. Maybe females perceived something about the strill's body odor differently than their male counterparts, some hormones or something like it.

Sundavar let go of Ularane's green-covered hand and stepped forward, receiving the small flashdrive Myles had retrieved from one of the many pouches on his hip.

"Myles will brief you on the details." Fett grabbed Sundavar's arm in the traditional handshake and recited evenly, "Ib'tuur jatne tuur ash'ad kyr'amur."

Sundavar hesitated for a moment, and Aran wondered what went through their minds behind those dark, somber eyes. The moment was lost, however, when Sundavar squeezed back, a determined look on his sun-tanned face. "I won't let you down, alor." It was stated firmly, with so much fierce determination behind it that Aran didn't doubt the man for a single second.

Fett nodded once and released the handshake, his mouth a thin line.

Ularane turned towards the small squad. "Now let's get those filthy chakaare." She then raised her fist in the air, exclaiming, "Oya!", earning a uniform, resounding "Huah, Oya!" in return. The word triggered the strill's hunting instinct and it shot out of the tent.

Myles left without another word, Sundavar and Ularane hot on his tail. The chosen men and women followed them out of the tent, presumably heading towards the ships.

As soon as the strill had crossed the threshold, most of the remaining men seemed to sigh in relief.

Only her buir was as tense as ever. She was obviously not happy to be excluded from the mission, but she understood why she wouldn't be part of it as good as Aran did. She was an experienced warrior, and she knew of the importance of remaining calm when dealing with dangerous opponents like the Death Watch. She'd get her chance, sooner or later.

Aran glanced in the direction of the tent exit.

The wind outside was gaining momentum. Snowflakes whirled through the gaps of the heavy leather tent flaps, and the cold breeze made the camp fire flames flicker and spark.

At least Ularane is finally getting that hunt with her husband she longed for.

The alor proceeded to educate them on the further course of their operations, now that they were finished on Vinuu Four.

Sundavar and his crew were to go to the Carlac system and check the intel they had gotten from a source Fett didn't share with them, then report back what they had found and finally join them at their new location.

The rest of them were going to relocate to the Thanium sector and deal with a bunch of pesky insurgents on -who would've guessed it- another ball of endless snow and mind-numbing, white landscapes.

Aran wasn't especially thrilled at the prospect of staying on yet another ice planet, but as far as she had understood they were all going to be directly involved with getting rid of the troublemakers. Experience and maybe some cash for my beskad-fund. A win-win situation.

What actually surprised her was the contractor. They had apparently been specifically employed by the planet's governour, because they were quote, "Quite efficient".

Yeah, understatement. If Jango Fett's Mandalorians were hired to do something, it was done right and thorough.

They were going to get done with the insurgents, collect their paycheck and gather up to take out Death Watch, their year-long nemesis, all in the span of approximately two to three weeks.

What a great way to start the new standard year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well well, here's the second chapter.
> 
> I finally gained access to my laptop again, so you can await more chapters to be published soon.  
> Many thanks especially to the great lagoochilde who reminded me to update the work on this platform as well.
> 
> I hope you are still in for more, even though there's not too much action in this short chapter.
> 
> Ret'!


	3. Chance and Venture

They had packed up immediately after the alor had finished their briefing and jumped into hyperspace later on the same night. They were always ready to leave in a matter of mere minutes under fire, and a less urgent relocation like this didn't take much longer.

Aran settled into her bunk aboard the Jaster's Legacy, an old Amphibious Interstellar Assault Transport ship from KDY Jango Fett had taken over and renamed after Mereel had died. The last few days of flight so far had been uneventful, and they weren't expected to stop between the jump at Vinuu Four and their arrival in the Thanium sector.

There really was nothing left to do for Aran but training, mingling with the others, and training some more. Ugh.

It wasn't like she didn't enjoy her fellow Mandalorian's company, but she really didn't need to hear the same old stories about how Ras'dii had almost fallen into a Sarlacc pit when his jet pack had misfired on a mission for the Hutt cartel on Tattoine, or how Vette had tricked a ship salesman into selling her three medium-sized transport ships plus additional weapons upgrade for a banged up old rust bucket by sweet-talking him. She had apparently been blessed with expert charisma and admirable convincing skills, for her most famous success wasn't her only one by far. It was almost as if she had some way of guiding her business partners' minds.

This night -she looked at the chrono on her arm plate to confirm that yes, it really was night time, it was hard to tell when the only thing you could spot when watching out of the window for days on end were the white streaks of hyperspace- she just wanted to rest. She needed all her strength for the cleanup in the Thanium sector.

Problem was, she couldn't get her mind to shut up.

She had already freed her boots from dried mud, meticulously polished her carbine and even thoroughly washed her partly blaster-proof undersuit. All of this, and her mind still found no rest. She turned to lay on her side, then decided against it and laid on her back, looking straight ahead at her drying suit, which now hung from a makeshift line until she could slip it on again in the morning.

She really needed to get one of those water-repelling ones Uvai had gushed about. Would come in handy on snow planets as well.

Ugh. Hopefully she didn't have to see snow in any way again for quite some time. Well, after their next contract was fulfilled, that is.

The planet they were traveling to apparently was part of the Galactic Republic. And according to some of the more experienced Mandos, Republic governors were part of the group of better paying clients.

If it really was a Republic governor hiring… Maybe her very own beskad was closer than she had imagined. Even an upgraded helmet system with a newer HUD, electromagnetic view, a range finder and some more gadgets might be in reach.

If the governour paid as good as they said. But she could dream, couldn't she?

While she was imagining all the new tools she could look forward to- spikes on her right shoulder plate to effectively surprise and injure an opponent by employing her shoulder tackle in close combat came to mind- she didn't feel her eyelids getting heavier and heavier.

The ship's engine hummed deep below the deck, and the low frequency vibrations made her drift off eventually.

She didn't wake sooner then when someone hammered his fist against the cabin door, but when she woke, she sat ramrod-straight in her bunk, fists held up and ready to fight. Her thoughts were swimming, but she knew to trust her instincts.

"Udesii, ad'ika. No need to get all tensed up."

Aran drew in air through her teeth, producing a hiss. Without turning her head she ground out, "Uvai, I swear to all my forefathers, if you ever do that again, I will put a plasma bolt right through that thick skull of yours."

He only graced her with a chuckle, apparently not at all concerned that she might come true with her promise.

Aran rubbed her hand up and down her face, trying to get her mind back on track. Later, Uvai… Give me some time to get the adrenaline out of my system and you'll have the most insolent revenge I can think of coming for you.

"Get up and ready, sleepy eyes. The Mand'alor wants to brief us one last time before we drop right into the battle zone."

Aran's head shot around. "What?!" She couldn't help the incredulous tone in her teenage voice. If they were already this close, she must've slept nearly ten hours!

"Why didn't any of you wake me up? Now the others will think I'm unorganized because I didn't time my chrono before hitting the bed."

Uvai clicked his tongue. "Nah, wouldn't say that. They didn't mention anything of the like when Vitalyi and I tucked you in this night." He smiled like the pain in the arse he was and pointed at her. When she looked down she noticed the cozy blankets she was still rolled up in to her hip and felt the heat rise to her cheeks. "Great. Now you treat me like a child?"

His face radiated innocence, but his eyes spoke another language.

"Me? Never. Although you looked kind of cute, puffy cheeks and rolled up like a Malastarian meat-roll…."

She shot daggers at him with her eyes. Oh-ho, prepare for Riimur-chili pulver in your pants, Uv'ika.

"Apparently you really want to experience first-hand how sharp a training blade can be, di'kut."

She freed herself of the blankets and crossed the room before he had the chance to do anything more than take a step back. She tackled him and upon contact realized it probably wasn't the best idea to do so before equipping her beskar'gam. Still, he fell. That counted as a win in her book, even if she was going to bear the bruises later on.

"Gah!" He tried to wrestle her off himself, but Aran was determined and currently had the high ground. He stood no chance. "Get off me! We don't have time for this- uff!" She ended his fleeting excuse with a flick of her fingers against his exposed nose. "Stop trying to talk your way out! The alor can wait for a few minutes more. I'll make you regret making fun of me and-"

Someone cleared their throat right above her. "Is that so?"

Aran winced. She knew that voice all to well. She dared to try a look up in Jango Fett's dark eyes. "I planned on coming right after I dealt with him, alor."

He looked nowhere near convinced and his face was as stern as ever, but he sounded benevolent when he spoke. "Of course. Now let go of one of our best warriors. We need him in one piece, not with both of his arms dislocated."

"Right." Aran let go of Uvai and stood up. When the other moved to get up as well, she shot him a look. She wasn't finished yet.

The corner of Fett's mouth curved upwards and Aran would've sworn she heard him mumble something among the lines of like mother, like daughter.

He eyed them once more, before turning on his heel and heading towards the ships central crew deck.

"That was unnecessary", Uvai commented mockingly.

Aran raised an eyebrow and turned to retrieve her suit. She knew better than to jump at it again.

Five minutes later she had picked up her buy'ce and crossed the threshold of the small cabin. Uvai, who had been leaning against the durasteel wall for as long as she had needed to put on her armour, led the way, watching her from the corner of his eye.

After they had turned the third corner and he still continued to play the same game, Aran stopped, groaning in annoyance. "You don't have to eye me all the time. If I really wanted to take revenge on you, I wouldn't do it right after getting on the alor's bad side for taking revenge on you."

The di'kut actually had the audacity to look sceptical. He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "You have to see why I have trouble believing that."

If Aran didn't know any better she'd said he sounded like he was genuinely considering all chances.

"Don't be so touchy, ner vod! You know I would never do something that diabolical. Other then telling buir that prankster time has officially begun..." At the last part she deliberately looked up in the air, tapping her finger against her chin.

Uvai's head snapped around, his eyes wide. He put his hands up placatingly, keeping his voice low. "Don't. Okay? Just- don't."

Aran pulled her best mirror image of Jango Fett's standard setting: One raised eyebrow, no other emotion visible on her face.

The attrition policy aka blackmailing always worked on him.

A few seconds went by with neither of them saying anything. The silence was only interrupted by the distant swishing of pressure doors and the occasional clanking of boots on the metal deck, as the other passengers of the ship moved around.

Uvai yielded first.

He exaggeratedly rolled his eyes, huffing in annoyance. "Fine."

Aran looked down, polishing her black t-visor with her gloved hand. She let her hair fall into her face, trying her very best to hide the smug grin spreading across her face. Gotcha.

A fist bumped her shoulder, and she almost dropped her buy'ce due to the unexpectedly hard nature of the contact. "Hey!"

Her head whipped up and Uvai flicked against her nose, just like she had done with him before. "Let's call a truce. No shenanigans or anything of the like until we have rooted out the first nest of rebels."

Aran tilted her head. "Just to clear things up: We're both keeping it low until our next resting period?"

He nodded, apparently satisfied with the proposal.

Aran repeatedly tapped her foot, contemplating the possibility of maximum prank exposure if she waited for the time after they dropped of right into battle. It wouldn't be right to risk his safety or the success of the mission just for some pesky revenge, no matter how deserved it was.

But she had promised him revenge and he would get the Viszla kind of revenge. Perhaps just with a little delay.

"Deal."

He took her hand with obvious skepticism. "I really don't like your grin. Should I be worried? I think I should be worried."

Aran just continued to grin, keeping her silence.

Hehehehe, just enjoy your short period of carefree truce-time, Uv'ika. After that- Everything's fair game.

She continued her way down the corridor, doing her best to grin like a maniac.

Uvai trailed behind her, eyebrows creased in increasing worry.

If she couldn't make his life a pain in the shebs for now because of their truce, she was sure as haran planning on wearing down Uvai. Psycho-terror wasn't out of bounds.

She was mentally planning every step to prepare her little… long-lasting surprise, completely ignoring how Uvai became more and more worried the longer she kept her silence.

He constantly tugged at his rugged cape, a clear indicator for his dislike of her unusual behaviour.

Heh. I bet he doesn't have a game plan yet. He had better adjust to the pressure, or it was gonna be a very one-sided prank war.

Their armoured boots clanked as they made their way towards the last pressure door separating them from the others. She could feel his eyes on the back of her head. He was contemplating something.

They were a mere meter from the point where the door mechanism would catch onto them and open automatically, when Aran raised a hand and stopped abruptly. "You know it's only fun-poking, right? You don't have to fear anything majorly damaging from a Viszla, right?" At his raised eyebrow, she added hastily, "At least not from the ones present on this ship."

"'Course I know, ad'ika." Uvai gripped his helmet in a tight hold under his arm and placed the other hand on his hip-mounted holster in a gesture of mock readiness. "I just like to be prepared." The easy smile had returned to grace his face, and so had the certainty. With that clear confession of readiness, he turned and entered the mess deck.

Aran started after him. The pressure door closed with a hiss and she moved to stand next to Uvai's red and grey figure. The room was well-filled with dozens of Mandos, a chatty, colorful sea of people. Most of them were human, but one could spot the odd Twi'lek, Bothan and other humanoids if the eyes were sharp. All of them were huddled around the central set of holo desks, talking among each other while waiting for the other ships of the fleet to open the holo transmission. The briefing would start no sooner than with all of them joined in to discuss the battle strategy.

"Where's buir?" Aran looked around, but despite her mother's unique colour scheme she could not pick her out of the mass of people crowding the mess deck.

Uvai on the other hand had a distinct height advantage. He needed to look only once, then wordlessly pointed towards the centrally positioned holo desk. Aran clipped her bucket to her belt and stretched to see. Two armour-clad humanoids stood in front of the broad transparisteel window, back-lit by the whirling colours of hyperspace. The taller one of them in dark grey beskar'gam listenedintently to his opponent, who donned bronze and cream coloured armour. The two braids of chocolate brown hair were an indicator, but the black Mandalorian shriek-hawk on the second figure's chest plate gave her identity away.

Yusani Viszla was deep in discussion with Jango Fett. and if one could go by her gestures and facial expressions, she was trying to convince the Mand'alor of something, while not doing the best job about it. Or maybe she was. One could hardly tell with Fett. His standard expression -one raised eyebrow, crossed arms- was about as telling as a brick wall. He must be a devilish good sabacc player.

Aran's contemplation was cut short however when the holo desks began beeping. A transmission was coming through.

The colorful tunnel of hyperspace contrasted nicely with the bluish shades of the blinking holo transmitters, and the screens all around them. Some depicted the ships current course, others different tactical information like fuel capacity, oxygen levels and various technical specifications. But everything else was drowned out by the consistent beeping of the holo transmitters.

Fett put a hand on Yusani's shoulder, whispering something, and she nodded, face tight, returning to the crowd to listen.

The Mand'alor then turned towards them, raising a single hand to silence them.

His dark eyes left no room for further discussion and quiet set in immediately.

Pushing two buttons on his armoured gauntlet, he activated the holo transmitters and two Mandos materialized, the bluish colour instantly marking them as holographic images. One of them was Myles, clearly identifiable by the markings on his helmet and shoulder plates. The other one might have been Habaari, though Aran couldn't be too sure, as she rarely interacted with the woman and was thus unfamiliar with her specific armour markings and paint patterns.

"Su'cuy, vode", Fett started, his voice serious and face determined. A chorus of 'Oya!' and 'Su'cuy' invited him to continue.

All the while Aran felt all men and women around her stiffen collectively, and she couldn't help but fall in line. Her aloofness was all but gone.

Fett's serious attitude was nothing out of the ordinary, but she instinctively reacted to the signs of an immediate fight. Her heartbeat sped up involuntarily and she had to refrain from tapping her finger against the helmet dangling from her belt.

"I'm proud to know you all beside me during our next conquest." It was a Mando's way of saying 'I'm happy to see you all alive and well.'

"After Habaari and her squad took care of fulfilling the last pieces of our contract on Vinuu Four, we now have moved on to another mission. A highly paid one, I must add." A sudden murmur went through the ranks. A nice and big good, old paycheck was always good news. Maybe the rumours about a Republic governor issuing this contract were true after all?

One glare from Fett hushed the crowd, only the occasional 'Oya!' remained to be heard.

"That also means it will be of higher risk to us, so we have to carefully plan each step to deal with the insurgency as effectively as possible. The Republic Governour of the planet system wishes it so."

"Oh great, now we let ourselves be ordered around by the epitome of corruption, the Galactic Republic and its dikut'la followers", the male Twi'lek next to Uvai grumbled. Even though it wasn't more than a whisper, Fett had heard it. His icy glare zeroed in on the Twi'lek.

That man had the ears of a dire-cat.

"Anyone who is not interested in well-earned money can leave ship immediately."

The Twi'lek lowered his head, not daring to attract negative attention again.

Fett dismissed the situation, his message had been made clear: They didn't need doubters. Anyone not fond of his style of command or the contracts he chose for them could gladly leave ship to never return.

Mand'alor Jango Fett demanded absolute loyalty, and he would settle for nothing less.

"We've been provided with the currently known locations for up to five insurgency camps." Fett slammed a portable holo projector onto the nearest free surface and a planet map swished to life. Five pulsating dots speckled the northern hemisphere, close to a bigger dot, likely the planet's capital city.

"The local militia however suspects there might be double the bases, some armed better than what the planet's security has been provided with by the Republic."

The hologram displaying presumably Habaari leaning on a crate aboard her ship, the Tracyn, flickered when she leaned forward, head tilted in question. "So what's the mission? Do we lend the local security forces a helping hand in arresting these di'kute?"

Aran felt her shoulders sag at Habaari's inquisition. No battle experience, then. Only holding hands for a bunch of shabla stick-swinging backwater cops. To hell with her luck recently! She wanted a real mission, not a highly-paid babysitting job.

To her pleasant surprise however Fett shook his head no. "We won't be working with the locals. In fact, it's solely our job to take care of the insurgency." The smallest of smiles played around the edges of Fett's mouth. "The governor authorized us to use lethal force. Apparently those insurgents have been attacking government facilities for months, and all attempts to negotiate with them have ended in bloodshed."

Hologram-Habaari removed her helmet. The Togruta's montrals were adorned with countless teeth she had collected over time. Aran didn't know if it was a part of Togruta customs she had seamlessly integrated into the Mando way of life or the inherently Mandalorian desire for trophies, but it gave her an aura of immediate danger.

A grin spread across her face, her eyes only glistening slits. When Habaari spoke, her sharp fangs shone with obvious lust for battle. "Their mistake. The negotiations will end. Permanently."

Approving grunts went through the ranks, as many Mandos nodded their agreement or struck at their chest plates to underline their contentment with Habaari's statement. It might've come across savage and barbaric to outsiders, but they all longed for a good fight.

Jango Fett only nodded curtly. "That's the goal. Habaari, you take care of the two westernmost encampments."

He pointed to the two bases in the hologram located furthest from the capital.

"I'll send you the exact coordinates in a sec. Myles, you deal with the one below that cliffside. My group will burn out the other two womp-rat holes."

"We'll have to time our attacks perfectly and leave them no room to act thoughtfully, or they'll have the others warned and we'll be off to a wild Corellian goose-chase across the entire continent", Myles interjected.

Suddenly Yusani stepped forward. "I agree. We have to use the element of surprise and every other advantage we can get. It's their home turf and they've got the numbers, but we have the experience they so glaringly lack." She pointed at the insurgency encampment Myles had been tasked with rooting out. "Just look at the placement of their base. Surrounded by mountains, yeah, but that makes it a death trap for them. We just have to bottle them up at this ridge here and they'll have nowhere to go." She looked Fett directly in the eyes, a determined glimmer in her eyes. "Alor, let me lead this assault. I have experience with this kind of initial position from an earlier campaign." The and I want to lead a squad and prove your trust in me is well-placed remained unspoken.

All eyes were on Fett, but his expression remained unreadable.

It would be a big sign of trust in Yusani, despite what some of her estranged clansmen had done.

The tense silence stretched seemingly stretched for an eternity. Just when Aran thought her mother had dared too much, the alor nodded slowly.

"Gar serim."

Aran couldn't hold back a smile. The dare had worked out!

"We've got enough vode aboard for you to choose from", Fett concluded.

"Myles, you and your squad will take care of the eastern camp, then. Anyone discontent?"

After a resounding 'Nayc', he sent the required coordinates to each squad leader respectively with a swift tap of his gloved finger. Fett then turned to point into the bluish projection of their target area.

"I'll leave the individual strategy to you, but don't forget our top priorities." He held up three fingers and began counting down. "Solus, we need to keep a low profile. If they don't detect us before we make our move, chances are they won't detect anything anymore. T'ad-" Here he held up two black-gloved fingers, "We need to prevent them from alarming the as of yet undetected bases. Best way to do so is to take out their transmitting systems somehow to cut them off of each other. They'll be helpless to our raids. And finally ehn. We need intel on the other bases, so make sure to capture some of them alive. We need to find the other bases before they have time to relocate in reaction to our attack." The alor accentuated each of his points by clear-cut gestures, making his insistence on these prime directives very clear.

He regarded them with a final stare, when suddenly the corner of his mouth curved up into a wild grin, unusual for the normally so collected man. "ETA is in two standard hours." He hesitated for only a smallest of moments, then proclaimed firmly, "Ib'tuur jatne tuur ash'ad kyr'amur. Oya, vode!"

With a fist pumped up in the air he let them know he expected all of them to be back in one piece by the end of this contract.

The resounding Oya! and subsequent thumps of fists on armour plates in answer was deafening, eliciting another cry of joy and a wide grin on Aran's face. Jango Fett sure knew how to keep the morals up among his people.

Fett officially dismissed the assembly and -after properly bidding farewell to the others too and cutting the transmissions to the other ships- left the mess deck to prepare for his part of the assault.

The deck emptied quite fast. Everyone had a kit to pack, a weapon to clean or clips of ammunition to add to their belt.

Aran unclipped her yellow-rimmed helmet and sat it upon her head in one fluid motion. She turned her head, looking at Uvai, who still stood next to her, his face now hidden behind a t-visor as well. Before she had a chance to address Uvai though, a click in her internal helmet comlink announced someone wanting to reach her. She could see in her HUD that the transmission came from her mother, and that it was a channel open to a few dozen other men and women as well. Yusani's chosen squad.

She noted all too gladly Uvai was part of it as well. Her buir would never have done without Uv'ika.

When her mother spoke, she used the same commanding tone Aran was uncomfortably used to due to all the shenanigans she had pulled as a child.

"Meeting at the mess deck at 0045. We'll discuss the strategy in-depth, and then it'll already be time for the drop-off. So pack everything you need before then, there won't be a chance to get anything else once the last mission brief has ended. Viszla out." The static crackling in her comlink announced the abrupt ending of the transmission. Aran quickly marked the channel as 'mission critical'; her mother would likely resort to using this channel as their squad's official means of communication during the assault.

Uvai let out an audible sigh. "Come on, ad'ika. Let's go pack our stuff. Maybe we can grab something to eat before it's time."

"Good idea", Aran agreed. After sneaking one last look at the fascinating web of hyperspace just outside the transparisteel dome, she followed Uvai at a smart pace. Grinning, her thoughts returned to durasteel spikes and Riimur-chili pulver. She had lots of stuff to prepare.

Yusani's buy'ce lay at her feet while the tanned woman explained a possible entry point based on the schematics provided by the planet's governor. Aran only listened with one ear. She was too busy inspecting the durasteel spikes freshly added to her left shoulder pad.

Not bad.

She knew congratulating oneself was incredibly arrogant, especially if the appliance one was congratulating oneself on hadn't even been battlefield-tested yet, but she was confident it would do her good in combat. She was probably going to take them off and reapply them properly later on. The fusing Job wasn't entirely to her satisfaction yet.

Her eyes returned to the holo image of a small half-fortified base at the foot of some medium-high mountains. The ravines would make for a good sound amplifier, so no easy air raids or drop off by ship near the target destination.

They had to root them out by foot.

Her mother was just going into the details when Aran mentally rejoined the briefing.

"-so we'll land the ships three to four klicks out and trek from there on to avoid detection."

Aran looked at the holo image again. Most of the planet's landmass seemed to be covered in thick woods. Maybe they could use the cover the foliage provided to their advantage.

Just as Aran was about to open her mouth to propose just that, Uvai interjected. "If the schematics are correct, their transmitter is relatively unguarded. I say we send an advance party to take out the transmitter on the alor's word simultaneously at all currently know bases, and when the rest of our squad sweeps in-", he clapped his fist into his other hand, emphasizing his words, "they won't even know what hit them."

Aran looked at him, smiling in agreement. Good thinking, Uv'ika.

Yusani looked to the side, frowning, seemingly deep in contemplation. A few seconds passed before she responded, a small smile adorning her face.

"Unleashing a coordinated attack on their means of communications? Good plan. I'll let the alor know, so that he can give the command when we're all ready to strike. But who would you send for such a daring task? It's most important that we not get detected, but we also need most of the force to overrun their position."

So Yu'buir was considering Uvai's strategy. Yet he didn't seem to react to the subliminal praise, only looking up to meet his squad leader's eyes, a neutral expression on his young face.

He's gonna be a great leader himself one day. And I'd be proud to fight next to him.

"I was thinking of Aran and myself, actually."

Yusani's eyes widened fractionally, but she beckoned for Uvai to continue. Clearly she didn't like the idea of being cut off from her daughter, but wasn't entirely opposed to a solid argument being made for why it had to be the two of them. Aran saw how she refrained from looking at her concernedly. Her buir was still fiercely protective of her, just like the strills native to Manda'yaim.

"She's excellent at improvising both under fire and while staying low, and we're the two best trackers in this group. If someone finds a way in without getting detected, it's us." Aran looked up at Uvai with wide eyes, heart warming at his apparently honest assertion of her abilities. He pinned Yusani in place with his determined stare, a gloved hand on her shoulder. When he sneaked a small peek at her, his warm green eyes spoke of undeniable trust in her abilities.

Yusani looked at Aran for a small moment, still torn between letting her child go and gain experience and keeping her close, safe.

There was never a place entirely safe for a Mandalorian. And only battle experience would make Aran's abilities grow, one day maybe forming her into a truly great warrior, but right now giving her the capability to survive battle relying on her own abilities.

With a curt nod, her eyes snapping back to Uvai, Yusani came to a decision.

Her brown leather kama swung behind her as she stepped closer to lay a hand on his armoured shoulder. "Very well. I have trust in your ability to assess the situation properly and make the right decision." She smiled, her eyes narrowing only the most infinitesimal bit, when she continued. "And I know you can accomplish this task, paving the way for our victory. Both of you." Here she considered Aran with a warm look. "You've become an excellent team, you two."

A comfortable silence spread between them. Aran relished the moment. The two beings most dear to her heart close to her, both reciprocating the love she felt. That's what the manda must feel like. Warm, fulfilling, and giving her the strength to do everything she set her mind to do.

They would've continued holding onto each other, but they were interrupted by Sigun, a gruff-looking man donning dark blue armour and a wide bandoleer spanning from his left shoulder down to his right hip, continuing behind his back. "Viszla, we should go on with the briefing. We have a lot to cover." He seemed impatient, judging from the tone of his voice.

Aran looked the man up and down. His unshaven, scarred face made him look like a madman.

Blue armour, the colour of reliability. Wonder why he chose that.

Before Aran could protest the rude interruption or her mother was able let off a tirade of harsh words, Uvai was already calming the waves. He had turned to face Sigun, eyes hard as he spoke. "You of all people know how hard it is to send your child into battle and not be around to watch its back, don't you? Then you will understand why Yusani needed this, I'm sure." His voice was peppered with verbal barbs just enough to get his point across. As soon as Uvai refocused on Yusani, his eyes softened." I'll keep an eye on her, Yu'buir", he affirmed lowly.

The other warriors sitting and waiting didn't seem fazed in the slightest by the emotional scene that had just unfolded in front of them. They were far more interested in their strategy. The drop-off was just another half an hour away, after all.

Moving towards more pressing matters, Yusani shared a final glance with Uvai and Aran, returning to her former position in front of the group and began relaying the plan of action.

Aran and Uvai were to move through the thick woods and over the snow-covered mountainside to flank the base close to the ridge. It would be easier and less attention-drawing for the two of them to scout ahead like that than to have a whole squad of Mandalorians trail behind them. The rest would stand by closely to be at the ready when the command to attack came through.

ETA was only ten minutes away, when Aran checked her gear one last time for completeness. Hunting knife, check. Med-pack, check. She had added some extra stims, no one wanted to be forced to rest while the rest of the vode were fighting. She sure was going to regret using the substances later, what with the hangover-like side effects and all, but it was all worth it if it meant sweeping the floor with those foolish rebels.

Her carbine was freshly polished and reloaded, and the extra clips were stowed away in her pouches and clipped to her belt. Grinning, Aran patted the two thermal detonators Baviiir, one of the more experienced Mandos, had gifted her. He had commiserated with her, remembering all too vividly how he hadn't had the luck to use explosives for most of his young years because they'd been too damn expensive in the cost-benefit-equation. "Eh, can't hurt to let ad'ike like you experience the gloriously subtle ways of the thermal detonator." Aran remembered the wiggling of fingers and the conspiratorial voice all too well.

Thanks to Baviir the 'negotiations' with the rebels would be all but dull.

Sitting atop a crate, she swung the carbine across her shoulder and combed through her unruly hair. She had to get it under control and under her helmet.

One side of auburn locks was already woven into tight braids, when Yusani joined her, herself in the process of preparation. In contrast to Aran, she was long finished with her gear and had moved on to her appearance. Contrary to popular opinion, Mandalorians did, in fact, care for their look. But not in the aruetiise way. No, Yusani was certainly not going to put on a flimsy dress and incredibly useless and hindering high heels. Instead she applied ashen, almost black colour, a powdery substance similar to soot, to her eyelids, smearing it down her cheeks like a black river flow. It made her eyes appear bigger and accentuated the piercing glare she sported when not amongst her aliit.

It was preparation for the rare case when an opponent might see her bare face. As her mother never grew tired to explain, pure fighting skill was one way to win a battle. Intimidation and manipulation was the other way.

Yusani already was a walking armoury. If someone got past the deadly beskad, the vibro-blade imbedded in her gauntlet, the dets, combat wire and the wrist-mounted flamethrower and actually managed to dislodge her buy'ce, they were left to a wild-eyed, soot-smudged and smirking Mando woman, and the split-second of intimidation, confusion, maybe fear was enough to catch anyone off-guard and ram a blade through their ribs.

Many other Mandos wore chains of teeth and bones strung to their armour plates to achieve the exact same effect. And experience showed: It shabla worked.

The aruetiise feared what they couldn't understand, and when you threw anonymous T-visors and the bones and teeth of various sentient and non-sentient species on top, they turned tail, scared out of their minds. And if somebody turned their back on you, there was nothing protecting their frail defenseless frames.

Heh, the rebels sure chose the wrong government official to oppose. The little dik'ute were going to wish they had just surrendered before the Mandalorians were called in.

Still in the process of braiding her hair to fit under her helmet and not fall into her face during combat, blocking her view and perhaps costing her dearly under duress, Aran found herself tapping her foot in a familiar rhythm. Despite the general activity -most of the Mandos present were due with their last check-ups- many joined in, tapping and stomping and sometimes even pounding their fists against armour plating. The beat grew in intensity, and despite the growing number of participants it stayed in-rythm, the constant low rumble accompanied by chanting voices of all calibres.

It was a Mandalorian war chant, made to pump up adrenaline before a fight.

"Oya'cye (Life)

Kyr'am (Death)

Mare'cye (Revelation)

Darasuum (Eternity)

Oya! Oya! (Let's live! Let's hunt!)"

Aran closed her eyes, absorbed in the moment, indulging in her deepest urge to chant and drum her fists against armour. The rumble of dozens of voices, young and old, male and female, husky and crisp, invoked a raging flame of passion in her heart. If Ularane's strill were here, it would slaver at the pugnacity filling the tight, steel-plated deck.

The volume rose steadily with each refrain repetition, and so did the urge to go and slice with a blade, to crack an enemy's bone, to do something.

At the chant's climax -now grown enough in sound intensity to lure other Mando'ade into the moving mass of warriors- a rough-looking human in blue armour (Sigun!) ground out a reverberating, harsh sound, ending the chant and silencing the whole crowd.

"Thanks kid. I think I speak for all of us when I say I needed that", Sigun admitted, his voice hoarse from the battle cry. Not a stuck-up, lone wolf after all, Aran noted in interest.

And just like that, everyone continued to do whatever it was they were doing before. It was typical for Mandalorians to not stress over something like the improvised battle-dance too much, but Aran knew that every single one of them was glad for the pre-battle stress-relief.

"Ori'kandosii!" Uvai clapped her shoulder, sweat glistening on his forehead. "That's the kind of warm-up I needed. Now we can go and hunt!"

"Oya!" The Mandos closest to them joined her battle-cry, raising their fists in emphasis. Aran relished the primal roar of Mandalorian solidarity, gathering strength for the upcoming battle and drive to do whatever was necessary to achieve victory. Her intense lust for life and thrill of anticipation in the face of collaborative fighting with her aliit, a uniquely Mandalorian feeling named shereshoy, filled up her chest, threatening to burst out of her in another cry.

She was once more glad for the anonymity of her buy'ce. It wouldn't be befitting for a deadly warrior to storm into battle grinning like an idiot. Or maybe she should've put on some more of her mother's facepaint. Then at least she'd have the intimidation factor on her side.

Aran looked around, noticing the tight, but prepared faces, radiating battle-readiness and primed for the hunt.

Heh. The rebels didn't stand a chance.

The low rumble of the ship engines stuttered and switched frequencies, and the small lurch of the vehicle indicated their emergence from hyperspace.

Just as she had pulled up her body glove's collar and set her helmet atop her head, the HUD flickering to life and the audio channel established and connected, the approach alarm sounded.

She prioritized their squad's joint channel with a quick blink at the pulsating signal.

In the meantime all of Yusani's troop had gathered near the opening to the exit ramp. A distorted voice emanated from the ship's speakers, "Attention, vode. We're hitting ground in T-40 seconds. Get a grip on those guns, and watch the shabla snow! Jat'geroya, vode! Jaster's Legacy out."

Despite the number of individuals crammed into the tight metal space right in front of the exit ramp, there wasn't the pushing and shoving you'd expect from a crowd like this. Everyone made last-minute checks of their weaponry, rearranging ammunition belts and cocking guns. Aran repeatedly sheathed and unsheathed her hunting knife. It might've looked like a nervous gesture to an outstander, but Aran wasn't nervous. She was exited.

So much so that the stupid grin still hadn't vanished from her face, now hidden behind her yellow-rimmed T-visor.

An important mission like this, with dozens of potential enemies, and she was trusted to play one of the most vital roles! This was her chance. Her chance to prove her worth to the other Mando'ade. To prove that the years of training hadn't been for nothing. That she as a Viszla could be trusted to make the right decisions.

She would make Yu'buir and Uv'ika proud.

The massive steel around her shuddered and the sub-light thrusters audibly shut down as the pilot reduced power.

The dampers of the Jaster's Vengeance groaned. And when the ramp lowered to reveal the snow-covered foot of a mountain, Aran sheathed her blade and marched down alongside dozens of individually painted beskar'gam, fierce determination in every step.

She was going to cement her status as a true warrior, today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, we're getting closer to the main act, now. Strap in tight, it's gonna be a rough ride!
> 
> Please review when you're enjoying this.  
> Many thanks especially to the great lagoonchilde who reminded me to update the work on this platform as well.


	4. White Night

The night sky sparkled with hundreds of bright stars.

Here, in the wilderness of this Republic-governed planet, there was no artificial light to disturb the lucid display of natural beauty. It was nice to look at, but Aran had quickly learned to book these sights under 'nice, but not worth dwelling about'. She had been to dozens of planets similarly low on technical development and sparsely populated. Thanks to her mother's contracting work she had also had the opportunity to lay eyes upon the exact opposite kind of world, such as Taris. She had even been to Coruscant once or twice. The opulent city jungle was, interestingly enough, quite comparable to a real, plants-and-wild-animals-jungle, the planet-wide city with buildings reaching from the original planet surface up far into the atmosphere only optically less violent and dangerous than the forests of Kashyyyk.

Nevertheless, she knew one shouldn't waste focus on the visually pleasing parts of strange alien plants and lush forests, but it was never wrong to keep certain aspects of the local fauna and flora under tight surveillance. Who knew what kind of dangers may be lurking behind shining red flower petals?

She trailed after Uvai who gave a live demonstration of how timed sprints and tactically staying low in the shadows could hide even a man of two meters in starch red armour. At least from the bare humanoid eye.

Aran switched her HUD to night-vision with a quick blink of her eye and proceeded to stalk forward, sticking to a route slightly left of her red-armoured vod. They moved quickly, but carefully. Aran's senses were on high alert, as they were nearing the suspected insurgent stronghold.

They could run into enemy patrols now at any given time.

That didn't concern her though, as she was quite confident Uvai and she would disable any patrol, especially because they had surpriseon their side. Nobody knew of the Mandalorian shock troops, dispatched to take care of the womp-rat infestation on this snowball no. 2.

What made her watch her steps and check on her hunting knife every so often, though, was the quite real possibility that the process of taking out a patrol would not go down as quietly as they needed it to. Any blaster shot without a silencer could be heard for miles and miles out here and would give away their position and intent to everyone in the vicinity. Even if the insurgents didn't notice the absence of one of their patrols in time, they sure as hell wouldn't stand by idly after shots were fired in the middle of nowhere.

Direct confrontation was precisely what they did not need; Not now, anyways.

The shadows of the evergreen trees were pierced by spots of glaring white snow, reflecting the starlight like a white canvas. Aran watched Uvai crouch low on the edge of a glade, waving her over to him. The night vision function made his red armour look almost black in the lack of natural lighting.

Uvai was whispering despite their external helmet speakers already being muted. "In light of our time limit we have no other choice, even if it means crossing an open space like this without any kind of cover."

Hand motions and clipped, hushed comments over their locked buy'ce to buy'ce comm had been their only means of communication since the drop-off hours ago. Aran felt the slight nudge of arising hunger pull at her stomach. In hindsight she should've opted to grab something to eat instead of working on her armour. There wasn't going to be time to gobble something down in the near time, and besides, she wasn't too keen on ration bars.

Aran glanced at the snow-covered meadow. Uvai was right, of course. They wouldn't be able to stick to the schedule if they searched for a way around the glade, especially considering the suspicious trails of hover-craft she had spotted a few minutes earlier. They could be ambushed by patrol squads, and then all hell would break loose.

The time window they'd been granted by the alor was abnormally tight. Usually they would scout ahead and plan their attack based on the gathered intel. A detailed overview over their target's surroundings and the enemies' troop strength was necessary for the precise clinical strikes Jango Fett preferred.

Aran suspected the Death Watch sighting had forced his hand. There was nothing Fett wanted more than to finally eradicate those hutuun'la bastards, and time was running out. If they wanted to still have a realistic chance of intercepting the Kyr'tsad, they had to get done with these insurgents as fast as possible.

She unclipped the macrobinoculars from her belt and did a quick sweep of the perimeter. The rebel base was just across the meadow, behind a thin line of scrubs and leafless trees. The one-story structures were dotted with snow, except for a small gathering of buildings on the camp's left flank. Aran switched the binoculars to thermal vision, and indeed the greyish plumes rising were warm smoke plumes. Probably the camp barracks and kitchen.

She returned her focus to the edges of the camp. The thermal vision made it easy to spot the various sentries around the perimeter.

"I count two patrols circling, a half a dozen individuals positioned on the side of the glade facing us."

Uvai remained quiet for a minute, doing his own visual sweep of the camp, no doubt. Then he tapped his index finger against the metal casing of his binoculars and exhaled, relieving a subconsciously held breath. "Confirmed." After another few seconds he added, "There seems to be a small opening on the left we could exploit. The sentries are too far from each other to have an overlapping view on the meadow. If we time it correctly, we might well be able to push through without raising an alarm."

Aran checked her chrono, then peered through her own binoculars again. She saw the corridor as well, but they had to move quickly. The system sun was going to go up in barely three hours and take the night's cover with them. And once the insurgents noticed them, their plan of sabotaging the messaging system would be made obsolete.

They didn't have enough time to wait for two patrol rotations.

Uvai came to the same conclusion. He lowered his matte macrobinoculars and motioned at the small clearing they had crossed not long ago. "Secure this area, Aran. In the meantime I'll brief Yu'buir on our gathered intel and get the others to regroup with us."

Aran nodded and withdrew from the edge of the meadow carefully.

Don't want some shabla critters to give away my location once again, after all.

If they could gather their forces in such a short distance from their target area, Uvai and her would be able to covertly trespass into the rebel camp, take out their means for communication and sabotage any other way for them to communicate outside the camp during the course of the attack, and then the real push could be undertaken by their troop without any risk of the rebels getting out and warning their allies. There was going to be no escape for them.

Aran positioned her carbine with the muzzle pointing downwards and silently moved back, following Uvai's instructions to look for any possible interference or signs of hostiles at their designated regroup point.

The snow surface was still untouched aside from the trail her and Uvai had left when they had first traversed through this area. She didn't see or hear anything out of the ordinary, and a quick sweep with the thermal vision of the binoculars confirmed only a handful of small mammalian inhabitants of the area. One could never be too cautious, though. There had not been hostile movements through this area as far as she knew, but that could change at any given moment. Aran followed the trail she had left before step by step. When she reached the end of the trail, she turned to look at Uvai. He was crouching behind the shrubs on the edge of the open field, holding his hand to the side of his helmet in an absent-minded gesture while contacting buir over commlink. He didn't acknowledge her in any way, didn't even look her way when she took a fallen tree branch and moved it back and forth across the snow to hide the signs of their presence. He apparently trusted her ability to do as instructed, so much so that he let her wander off during a critical part of their mission. Not many of the group huddled around Fett would do so, because despite her age and training she was still considered too inexperienced to work unsupervised. It irked her to think about that, the missing trust in her abilities and will.

She glanced at Uvai again, his tall form hidden well in the darkness. He was caught up in the transmission, his left hand still clinging to his helmet.

Ah, screw the others. I have Uv'ika. And buir. And my performance on this mission… it might just be the feather on the scale to convince the others.

Now the path she had just worked on with the tree branch looked like an abandoned wild trail, snowed upon and forgotten. Any hostile crossing this area would not glance twice at it.

The comm connection crackled inside the confined space of her buy'ce. "Ad'ika, are you finished?"

She quickly made her way back to her place at Uvai's side. "Do we have the clearance to go along with the infiltration?"

The dark red helmet bobbed up and down. "It appears the other groups have scouted their target perimeters as well. We are expected to proceed now."

A grin spread over Aran's face. Time to shine.

Both warriors crouched low, advancing towards the edge of the meadow carefully as to not startle any remaining wildlife.

Buir and the other Mando'ade od their troop would gather a few clicks from here, far enough to not catch any unwanted attention, but not too far to join them in the fray when the time had come.

The macrobinoculars were pulled out to check patrol positions again. Aran had almost forgot how much she disliked having to be on another snowball, that's how excited she was to raid the insurgent camp.

She peeked through the binoculars, following the pair of men to the right with watchful eyes.

The tight corridor they had designated as their best chance for undetected entry was almost available. The two guards to the right just had to pass the treeline- There.

Uvai tapped her on the back and Aran sprinted over the open field, carbine flush against her chest plate. In less than five seconds she had crossed three quarters of the distance, now well into the hearing range of the sentinels. She'd have to be even more careful.

One bounce, one metallic clank of the carbine against her beskar'gam and she was screwed. At this distance not even Uvai's sharp eye would be able to take out the threats before they homed in on her. Their plan relied on them to not be discovered, otherwise the insurgents would certainly inform the as of yet unidentified cells and the Mandalorian raid would be fruitless.

She didn't spot any hostiles looking her way. There was only the calm insurgent camp and the quiet night air. There was no cover here, only a small snowbank hid her advancing form.

Barely a meter, a second before she would've thrown herself into the white powder, and an invisible hole under the soft white surface caught her boot and send her stumbling. To her eyes it happened in slow-motion.

Her arms instinctively rowed in the air to gather some sort of balance, her carbine released and swinging wildly. She saw the metallic glint shining in the starlight, thought, Thank manda it's a new moon night or I could've equipped a shabla flashlight and be less conspicuous, grabbed the metal bar with one armoured hand and went for the forwards roll. The dull impact screamed like a dozen Dha Werda Verda dancers in her ears.

Damn this entirely too open field. Damn this planet, and its shabla snow!

Aran was uncomfortably aware of how close the patrol had still been when she had started her sprint across the snow field. She mustn't be detected. She needed cover.

Eyes fixed on the snowdrift, Aran began crawling forwards, the carbine secured over her armour-clad forearms. With the pressure of the mission and the adrenaline flooding through her system the three meters felt like an eternity to her.

Her body's high alert made her all too aware that the steps of the patrol didn't fade away into the distance like they were supposed to. So they had noticed something.

She didn't dare move a limb, her heart hammering a thunderous beat in her chest.

She pressed herself into the snow, willing the guards to continue their patrol after dismissing the suspicious sounds as just local wildlife. Just go, you little fierfeks, or I'll personally make sure you'll never walk anywhere ever again.

Aran held her breath until her lungs burned, despite the muted external helmet speakers.

"Udesii, ad'ika…" Fortunately the low voice registered as 'friendly'/Uvai immediately, even in her agitated state. Otherwise she might've brought up her weapon and ruined any remaining chance of this whole ordeal continuing undetected.

The click in her comm connection let her know her vod hailed her again. "They broke protocol to have a smoke. No indication that they noticed you in any way." And indeed the two men soon started talking, apparently not caring for the calm night air carrying their voices for hundreds and hundreds of meters.

Idiots.

Despite the reassurance this verdict should've invoked it took all of Aran's willpower to stay completely still. Her instincts urged her to rise from behind the snowdrift to just sink two plasma bolts into exposed foreheads and be done with it.

She forced her mind down, instead listening to the two men discuss the newest Merr-Sonn blaster model, when she noticed a crunching sound over their voices - The smoke's butt being extinguished.

"They're moving away. I'm going to cross the snow field now", Uvai announced over comm. "Prepare to eliminate the targets if necessary."

Aran threw a quick glance back towards the edge of the treeline. A crouched figure crossed the field, steering towards the slightly thicker snowbank ten meters to her left.

Despite the alarming proximity of the voices in front of her. Uvai was gutsy.

She prepared for any disturbances, weapon at the ready. Who knew if those guards decided on a whim to put up their feet and marvel at the beauty of nature. That, Aran resolved with a tight face, would be their death sentence.

Hiding the corpses would be a challenge due to the easily traceable tracks (shabla snow), but they wouldn't have to rely on it for too long. Only a few dozen meters now and Uvai and her would reach the camp transmitter. No one would ever come to the insurgents' help after that.

She listened carefully, but there wasn't any sign of the sentries. No crunching of snow below military boots, no shuffling of thick winter clothing, no careless conversation that gave away their position. Contrary to her expectations they had actually proceeded with their patrol. The grip on her carbine softened. Good choice.

From his position left of her Uvai knelt on one knee to peer over the low snowbank, his blaster held low. A fully armoured Mandalorian peeking like a small aruetiise child. It had something ridiculous to it.

The snow crunched below her as Aran shifted her weight to her arms. She was waiting for Uvai's assessment. He was the squad leader, he called the shots. And she trusted his experience without hesitation.

After a heartbeat's consideration the red-clad warrior raised his left hand.

Two to the left, close-by.

He leaned forwards slightly, blaster now resting at his side. Another hand sign. We'll take them out. Quietly.

Aran lowered her own weapon, the sling holding the carbine close to her side. She imitated Uvai and knelt behind the low snowdrift, ready to vault over it at his command. Her armored boots dug into the soft snow, and she was once again thankful for her insulated thermo-kute.

A breeze disturbed the lightest layer of the snowdrift and powdery white snow fluttered over her visor.

Aran shifted her weight to prevent any further noise. She mustn't alert anyone to her position. Armoured fingers closed around the handle of her trusted hunting knife.

Deathly silence reigned over the night. Compared to it her own breath was almost deafening inside the confinements of her helmet. She glanced sideways at her ner'vod, who had the better vantage point due to his height. Uvai's red-painted helmet slowly moved from left to right, carefully scanning the area behind the snowdrift. Aran deactivated her night vision. Wouldn't do her any good in the insurgent camp littered with sources of artificial light.

Her heart began to increase its rhythm, the intensity now comparable to a restrained version of her people's war dance. She could feel the tension in the air rising by the second.

Then the command came. At the flick of Uvai's wrist Aran pushed herself off the ground and launched her body over the ridiculously lacking cover of the snowbank. She segued into a roll and came to a stop at the corner of a run-down brick building, hunting knife raised in front of her.

There was no time for a perimeter check.

She turned to the left and stared right into the ice-blue eyes of the sentry. Time slowed down.

The man froze, his eyes wide with shock. A frosty breath clouded her vision.

Aran wasted no time and slammed her shoulder into his stomach, robbing him of any air he might've used to give off a high-pitched scream to alert his fellow insurgents. The man's thick coat had done nothing to ease the force of impact. Her shoulder spikes served their purpose well.

The man doubled over and his hands lost their grip on his rifle. Before anything more than a low 'Ooompf' could escape his throat Aran crouched low, then sprang up and sank the serrated edge of her blade deep in the man's jugular. Shiiinnk. She would rather not grant him any chance to scream.

The man clawed at her hand, trying futilely to remove the knife from his soft flesh. Aran's fingers were unbendable iron around the knife's handle, negating any chance the already-dead man might think he still had. Suddenly his survival instincts seemed to spring into action and he kicked at her shin with much more force then he should realistically have left in his body. The adrenaline in her own system and the metal plating made his desperate attempt feel like a weak snowball had hit her.

Wide eyes shot up and a wet gurgle escaped his ruined throat.

More clouds of warm air, coming in close panicky succession and fogging her cold visor.

Her heart thundered along the beat of a full-blown Dha Werda Verda.

Aran punched his defenceless side, the knuckle armour making her one-handed hit much harder. Her aim had been true: The liver shot made the ninety kilogram adult human male crumble like a wet cardboard stand-up. She may have been of smaller stature, but she had the advantage.

The man slid down the rough brick wall, his hands alternating between searching for support and pushing against her arm, chest, visor. Another croak, more red liquid flowing between her fingers. Luckily the handle was encased in leather strips, or it might've gotten slippery.

Ice-blue eyes stared at her, boring through the anonymous dark t-visor. Their pupils were wide and black like forest ponds.

Aran shifted to gain more foothold on the slick ground and clutched the knife with both hands. Despite her smaller frame she towered over the sentry's sunken body. The man's arms flopped against her chest uselessly, leaving sticky red stains all over her chest plate. Still, adrenaline-driven humans were capable of incredible feats when in life-threatening danger. Aran rearranged her grip and used all of her body weight to drive the blade deeper into the tense body. She felt resistance and pushed some more, grunting from the effort. The dry scratchy sound had her realize she had hit bone. Stabbed right through the man's jugular, into and through his collarbone.

His jaw moved like the man wanted to say something, but only little bloody bubbles pushed through his parted lips. He didn't have the strength to raise his arms anymore.

Soon all movement ceased, and the man lay still. His washed-out winter coat was soaked with blood. Beside his motionless form little puddles of the thick fluid formed in the snow, small white specks swirling in circles of red only to melt away just as quickly. Ice-blue eyes stared into the star-speckled night sky, empty and without life.

The serrated blade didn't come free easily. It caught on the broken bone and the slashed raw flesh. More droplets emerged, flowing down the vertical body almost lethargically. Someone grunted with effort.

Aran's hands shook with adrenaline and she felt like she could take on an army. Close-quarters combat was drastically different from shooting people from a distance with a blaster.

It was personal.

And it was dirty. She glanced at her knife, the serrated blade was covered in red. She stepped towards the body and wiped it on his sleeve.

A wet squelch made her snap back to reality. She kicked at the snow, now interfusing with the sticky red liquid. The white powder looked harmless enough on its own. Until you almost failed your entire mission because you stubbed your toe on some of it.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. No. No time to waste now. No shabla time to get off the adrenaline high. In fact, adrenaline was good. Fine-tuning her senses, allowing for quicker-than-normal reaction times. Perfect for the mission.

She brought up her carbine and checked her surroundings for the first time since she had jumped the snowbank. She didn't worry for her ner'vod, he was much more capable in close-quarters combat. Additionally he towered over basically any hostile they had encountered up to this point in time.

She didn't hear anything besides her own labored breathing. Nobody was approaching their position. Apparently her effort to smother any sounds of distress had paid off.

To be safe she still advanced to the next corner and checked for any hostiles, but no one had noticed their little scuffle. The other patrol was far away, and the warm pillars of steam continued to rise peacefully from the cantina building's chimney.

Aran turned back and searched the other side for the remaining sentry. Uvai should've taken care of him by now. Indeed the red-clad warrior was in the process of shouldering the other sentry's corpse, the weird angle of the man's neck pointing towards a less dirty end than the man to Aran's right had had to endure.

Not that it mattered; they both didn't mind sullying their hands in the course of an assignment.

Aran took a step back to examine her handiwork just as Uvai approached her. It was a bloody mess. The corpse looked like a hungry Dire-cat had snacked on his throat.

"Ori'kandosii! That was shabla good work, ad'ika." Uvai's hand clapped her back. "I thought I knew why Viszla women are feared. But this was ruthlessly efficient." His voice wavered slightly. So he'd had his fair share of an adrenaline rush as well.

Uvai dropped his corpse next to the other one. There really was no point in hiding the bodies anymore. The ground was literally coloured with evidence.

After careful inspection Aran sheathed her blade. "But now we have an even tighter time limit", she admitted lowly, grinding her teeth. If, no, when the corpses were discovered- which would be as soon as the patrol returned in just fifteen minutes time -they had to be finished with sabotaging the transmitter. A raised alarm was at this point in time their worst case scenario. Virtually the point of no return.

Uvai's helmet tipped to the side, glancing at the bodies. When he turned his head a little more than a heartbeat later he clicked his tongue, the sound ringing irritatingly loud in her helmet comm. "Wer'cuy."

He motioned towards the insurgent camp, indicating the path they'd follow. "Let's go."

The violent death of the two sentries was all but forgotten. Nothing more than their lifeless bodies growing colder by the second remained.

She turned her back on the scene and looked up at the sparkling stars. Was it too crass to giggle at the irrelevance of the sentry's life? Dying here, on this rural planet, without leaving a lasting impact, only because he had been unfortunate enough to be on guard duty, to cross her way tonight.

Aran glanced back at the body. Laid to rest in the cold snow he looked almost peaceful.

Uvai's armoured boot stepped into the bizarrely beautiful red spots on pure white and disrupted the pattern.

She shook her head, hopefully shaking off the strange aloofness as well. She glanced around, checking the surroundings like a good Mandalorian warrior would, pointedly ignoring the strange feeling crawling up her spine.

It irked her, really.

Wandering off with her thoughts like this in the middle of a job was unlike herself.

Maybe it was the added pressure of having to perform well under any circumstances? It wasn't just the entire operation resting on Uvai and her shoulders, but the good faith of the alor in her mother depended on the success of this ordeal. They had to get this over with quickly and quietly.

She knocked her knuckles on her buy'ce twice, ending these distracting thoughts and rearranging her mind to focus on the mission at hand.

She wouldn't waste another moment thinking about the sentries. They had been nothing else but a hindrance to them, and now they were no more.

Alas, there was no time to reminisce on nameless, honourless dead. They hadn't meant anything to her, and she didn't care if they left behind anyone waiting for them.

Besides, they had a lot more insurgents to clear out. The camp may still rest in a peaceful slumber, but Uv'ika and her were about to clear up this nest of unprofessional di'kute.

The night would not be peaceful for much longer.

She wiped her glove on her black trousers, damning herself the second she did so because getting the blood outwas going to be a pain in the shebs.

She reinforced the grip on her carbine, once again checking her surroundings, and was met with only nightly silence and darkness. Uvai passed her, heading towards the camp's center.

On the other hand.. Blood-crusted gear evoked fear in aruetiise of all species. It might just be worth it to sully her stuff to get that slight edge when her opponents instinctually halted in the face of an obviously threatening enemy.

Three quick steps brought her right behind Uvai, his towering height hidden in the twilight of a gap between the two closest buildings.

He brought up his macrobinoculars again. Aran positioned herself behind him and disengaged the carbine's safety. She aimed the weapon loosely in the direction of the corpses, securing the flanks and vulnerable backside. If anyone approached them she'd make short work of them.

Uvai's tongue click caught her attention. "Found it", he whispered.

And sure enough he pointed her to the only one of the cabins making up the insurgent encampment that sported an antenna. The transmitter.

A light tap to her shoulder made her turn around entirely, and the two of them quickly crossed the narrow alley to hide in the gloom on the other side. Crouched low, Aran checked her surroundings for the umpteenth time.

No immediate access points to the alley, so no surprises. If hostiles were to enter the narrow corridor, they had to enter through the entrance at the end or come up from behind.

A crunch made her whip around, carbine at the ready. Her finger rested comfortably on the trigger. Uvai looked at her, dark visor betraying nothing. "Udesii, ad'ika."

Slightly detached, she watched some of the tension leave her shoulders in the reflection of Uvai's black t-visor. False alarm.

The calmness of his voice was contagious, and Aran soon found her breath to follow reasonable patterns again. Good. Shaky hands weren't helpful when you were aiming your blaster.

Uvai had moved his focus to the dimly-lit alley entrance again. "Use your kad. Blaster bolts are too noisy." With a low Shhhhiiink a vibroblade extended from his vambrace. "And remember: We strike before they do."

Aran nodded sharply. "No mercy for the aruetiise."

The knife handle lay comfortably in her armoured hand.

"Oya."

They moved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Su'cuy, people!  
> Here is the next chapter. I'll update them quickly now, to keep the same stand as on FF.net.  
> Many thanks to the great lagoonchilde who reminded me to update the work on this platform as well.
> 
> Alas, enjoy reading. Reviews are - as always- gladly appreciated.


	5. Bad Feeling

Advancing through the camp had been much easier than they'd anticipated.

The armored figures made headway quietly, never showing their painted beskargam in the dim glow of spotlights and lanterns.

They hurried from shadow to shadow, always keeping to the unlit alleys and spots between artificial and natural sources of light.

No more direct encounters between hostiles and us.

They were lucky this time. It was nighttime, after all – and apparently most of the insurgents approached the topic like the aruetiise usually did. They felt safe in the quiet of night, snuggled into their cots and fast asleep, unaware of the dangers that lurked between them.

Aran shook her head. Those di'kute didn't take into account that keeping watch was of even greater importance during the dark hours than during the day. Any sane strategist attempting to attack their little rebel party in the snow would opt for the night, where darkness would cover flanking manouvers and veil any number of approaching attackers from the insurgents' blind eyes.

The cold breeze had increased in intensity. It blew up little wisps of snow, caressing the blank walls they used as cover with periodic strokes. Shrubs bowed, their leafless twigs whistling hollowly. Winter had arrived in full to the Outer Rim planet.  
Aran rolled her shoulders to relax the bunched-up neck muscles. Her beskargam's temperature regulation really was working frantically to stabilize the flow of warm air streaming through the tight-fitting bodyglove underneath her armour, but the system had racked up quite some years of service for a product of a comparatively low production value. She cracked her neck to the side, hopefully relieving some tension. Every wisp of cold air striking her most exposed bodyparts sent shivers down her spine. Some kind of leak at the neck part was making it quite impossible for the old, but usually reliable regulation to unfold its effect. It was time for a new one- or a change in climate.

The ice-cold breeze wouldn't relent- but neither would they. In a matter of minutes Uvai had led them to the transmitter cabin. It was an old brick building, the red stone barely covered up by brittle greyish plaster. Apparently the only part of the encampment that the insurgents had put any effort into hiding amongst the masses of endless snow and pine woods on this planet. Well, if one ignored the transmitter antenna poking into the clear night sky like a metal spire.

Not that it made any difference.

The columns of warm smoke snaking their way lazily into the bitterly cold night air were like a signal flare to any thermal sight. And if that didn't manage to tip you off, the sentries didn't exactly try to hide their presence. The wisps of condensation following them with every breath they took were just the Naboo-cherry on top of the Uj cake.

"How in all of Manda'yaim's seven hells did the local militia not manage to discover these clowns?", Aran grumbled lowly as another insurgent passed the shadowy alley they were hiding in. The young Twi'lek was busy fixing the knitted wool warmers he wore over his lekku, a long and passionate yawn escaping his throat.

Her fingers itched to grab the blue alien and silence his dikut'la mouth. It was simply shameful how incompetent these insurgents were.

That's what the planet governour needed an entire Mandalorian platoon for?

She wasn't so sure about the cost-benefit equation, but heh. Weren't her credits, were they?

Not yet, anyway.

Uvai didn't respond directly, but she could hear he was grinning from the way he was breathing. It sounded like he barely held in a laugh.  
"I suggest we ask them when we collect our payment, ad'ika", he chuckled, his finger moving closer to the trigger of his heavy blaster rifle.  
That will serve as excellent after-mission amusement- if the alor allows it. Which would not happen. Jango Fett was not a humorous man; him poking fun at their contractor while cashing in on the promised credits were entirely out of the realm of possibilities.

Snow crunched under his heavy boots when Uvai moved a bit closer to the edge of the alley.  
"Aran, you go and check the window. How many, and where. Wait for my sign." Within a heartbeat the levity of the situation was all but wiped away. They had a job to do. No time for jest at this stage.

She nodded and positioned herself at the building's corner. Uvai clapped her upper arm's armour plating and Aran leapt forwards.  
The run-down building had a single one-by-one meter window. Dim light shone through the dirtied glass. Aran slowly crept closer, edging her visor centimeter after agonizing centimeter closer to the border of the window. These rebels may appear mostly incompetent, but even a blind nuna sometimes finds a grain of corn.

She did not intend to make it easy for these di'kute.

Aran inched forwards slightly, still using the cover of darkness to her advantage, and risked a peek inside.

The building consisted of one open room decorated with nothing more than a few littered stools here and there and the complicated technical cable tangle of the transmitter array. Seated around the various wires, levers and display panels she spotted four insurgents clad in the same greyish wintercoats they had seen before. Her sweep across the wide room revealed a dirty brown fur coat draped over one of the abandoned stools in the dimly-lit corner. Why the need for insulating clothes inside a building? No heating inside the transmitter building, apparently. Did they fear a cable fire through a defective heating array?

The group consisted of three humans and one Twi'lek; this time it was a green one with almost turquoise lekku. The tips shone in a deep navy blue tone. Aran remembered reading that this indicated when this species felt cold.

No wonder. Twi'lek originated from Ryloth. This here is barren land as well, alright, but the sixty degrees difference in temperature won't make him feel cozy by a long shot.

"Four sentients inside, drinking some kind of hot beverage. Don't see any droids", she informed Uvai curtly, but in a whisper. She checked for the gazillionth time if her external helmet speakers were actually muted. The icon blinked red at her squint, informing her of the cut-off outside line.

Never rely on tech too much, ad'ika, her mother used to say. And Aran agreed. The high-tech gear most modern Mandos equipped themselves with was helpful, quite a lot, actually. But she'd heard that some of the less… traditional ones (the wannabe-aruetiise, Yusani called them) didn't really care for learning how to fight without them anymore. Luckily di'kute like them didn't make it for very long, and so the shameful behavior had never actually found any footing in Mando society.

"Alright." Uvai crouched next to her, trusting in her ability to call a situation. There was no threat apparent from these bumbling, drinking insurgents. "Let's introduce ourselves the Mando way."

There it was again, the smug grin he sure as haran wore under his dark red buy'ce.

She couldn't help the equally self-assured grin forming behind her dark visor. "Hah! They won't even know what hit them."

Uvai touched her shoulder plate, motioning for her to return to the cover of the dark building façade. "Remember why we are here. Remember our mission." Aran focused on his steady voice, all business and no trace of jest left. "I want to get one of them alive, just in case. Kill the rest."

She risked another quick glance inside. The warm light from the inside was irritating her.

These people's days were marked. They were hindrances to their mission. This made them just expendable meat bags standing between two Mandalorian warriors and their target.

Aran eyed the insurgents again. Too easy of a target. It was like these militant rebels had never heard of the ground rules of guerilla combat. Brightly-lit cabins and sloppy, visible-from-a-mile-away sentries?

Uvai and her joint, purely instinct-based verdict of "whole bunch of di'kute" appeared to be as true as ever.

She forced out a grumbled, "Well, they are aruetiise, so what do I even expect?"

Uvai tsked. "Don't underestimate them, ad'ika. Even idiots are able to to aim a blaster."

He had a point. More capable warriors then her had had to experience that for themselves. She had to use every chance she could get to gather an advantage over her enemies. Speaking of which…

"You wanna knock and say 'hello' in thermal or good, old boot-style?" Aran's finger caressed one of the thermal dets Baviir had gifted her. Oh, how she wished she could use one of these babies. Explosives made for an excellent mix of distraction, destruction and fear to keep hostiles out of action for as long as it took to ram a serrated blade through their jugular.

And this time they didn't necessarily need to play it low.

Sadly her ner'vod had other plans. "We better keep it relatively quiet until reinforcements arrive. I don't feel the need to pick up a hostile's gun because we ran out of ammo and have our backs to the wall."

Aran dipped her head. Fair point.

The snow under her boots crunched when she stepped closer to Uvai. In turn he cocked his blaster. A few shots wouldn't be a problem now that they were literally seconds from achieving their goal. "I'll go in first, surprise and suppression. You take the kill shots."

She visualized the targets sitting around the transmitter. Three human males, one Twi'lek. Less than nine shots to take them all down and be sure they stayed down.

Uvai positioned himself in front of the run-down door. His height made him look even more intimidating to anyone observing the two of them.

Aran checked her carbine, aiming it at the not-yet opened door. The power cell was fully charged.  
She exhaled quickly in an attempt to calm her excitement. She wasn't a bad shot.

But this time each shot counted.

The less noise, the better. Otherwise she might have to use the dets as last resorts to keep back a wave of insurgents from outside, and that would be a waste of a perfectly good room-cleaning agent.

Uvai inhaled sharply, and the buzzing energy spread through Aran's veins again. The light breeze and tiny snow particles drifting through the air zoomed into a bizarrely accurate focus.

"On three. Solus. T'ad-", He took a few steps back in preparation,"Ehn!"

The thick red armoured boot crashed into the locking mechanism of the door and it crashed down, plaster and rusty old hinges included.

Uvai lunged forward and the room lit up in a hail of blue. Aran followed the red armour and in less than a second two of the humans had smoking holes in their frontal lobes. Two cups half-filled with hot liquid slipped from limp hands. They hadn't even had the time to draw their weapons.

Uvai had immediately stopped firing, but it felt like an eternity before his muzzle stopped spitting bolts of blue.

Aran's carbine was still raised, and she dared the remaining insurgents to make a move.

They stared at them, wide-eyed and without making a sound. Shock had constricted their throats, and no sound could escape their split lips. Just then did she realize how utterly terrifying they must look like to outsiders. Uvai, a mountain of dark red beskar and muscle, was towering above the both of them with his rifle, and she was still splattered with crimson from their previous encounter. Both of them were armed to the teeth.  
It would be shabla near a wonder if one of the insurgents even had the ability left to move at all.

But one should never underestimate one's enemies, as she was about to learn. Especially not in close quarters like this.

The second Aran saw movement to her left -Uvai!- it was too late.

The last remaining human stretched to the side to grab onto his rifle. Three meters distance. Aran fired thrice in short succession; one smacked into the loose plaster behind the target, one into his chest and one to the cap-covered head. The force of the shots sent the insurgent backwards over the chairback. His body spasmed once, but Aran had already locked onto the next threat.

A greenish hand, clutching a small sports blaster.

Next to her Uvai grunted before being thrown to the floor by a big brown shadow in the outermost point of her vision. What..?

She had to hold back. Uvai wanted one alive. The Twi'lek? Disqualified himself by raising his hand even after his friend's fate.

The guttural roar which followed sent shivers down her spine. Too loud. Way too loud.

She was still re-aiming her weapon in slow-motion, when Uvai crashed to the floor again in a clatter of armour plates. It just took too agonizingly long to just move her shabla carbine-

The Twi'lek slipped to the floor, lekku still spasming, when her eyes and body caught up with what her ears had already feared.

Above Uvai's armoured form stood a shaggy-haired, 2.30m Wookie. Predicate: Angry.

"Oh, haar'chak!"

Yusani Viszla sliced at a piece of dried meat with steadily rising agitation. The last piece had already been reduced to useless strips moments before by a vicious slice of her prized beskad.

Sigun was not going to comment anything – much like his fellows he wasn't suicidal – but he would bet his favourite blaster that their dear alor'ad was nervous. Maybe because she had personally authorized a daring dash into enemy territory, leaving her two beloved ad'ike surrounded by dozens upon dozens of hostiles without any chance of timely reinforcements should something go south. Or perhaps she trusted those kids of hers, but Fett's trust in her was giving a Viszla of all sorts stomach trouble?

Either way, it was unlike her. Under ordinary circumstances the experienced warrior would not have left behind any kind of remains, and the slices of dried meat were a beacon to each and any non-sentient around here.

The trail these beast were going to leave… well, he hoped the resident insurgents were quite as incompetent as he was coming to expect from aruetiise after years and years of dealing with them.

Viszla finished the next stick of beef jerky and opted to decapitate an innocent young pine tree growing beneath her armoured feet.

This prompted Piett to wince- and the man usually had a rod so far up his shebs, that Sigun found it hard to believe he could actually operate in any environment that required some semblance of stealth, even though he had personally witnessed it dozens of times.

That was the prize for being born into a family of career officers. The high standards, the social etiquette- it was hard to adjust to the 'barbarian' lifestyle, even if you had escaped the nose-up, ramrod straightjacket of admiralty years ago. Habits learned early were hard to quit.

Sigun sighed. This mission was going to be hairy business, he had a feeling about it.

After years of living the mercenary life, rallying at the Mand'alor's calls and helping yourself towards the odd singe whenever you held your shebs into the line of fire for too long, you gained some sort of gut instinct. It told you whenever you had to duck your head to evade a thermal detonator hissing past your head or when your opponent was bluffing in sabacc; foolproof and without need for electricity.

He turned his midnight blue helmet upwards, tracing the tiny snowflakes drift towards the surface peacefully.

This job was too good to be true. A Republic governor, contracting them of all available sources to get rid of some local rebellion? Pah. Something smelled like gi'haal around here.

The Republic had not been on good terms with Mandalore for millennia, if ever. All they saw was a bunch of dangerously well-organized and trained madmen with guns and a hard-on for murder. Not in a thousand years would a Republic governor of all sorts have Mando'ade on his planet voluntarily.

The head of this shabla snow hell (his fingers were still numb from fishing for the mag he had wanted to share with Yaella) had to have offered Fett a lot of credits if the Mand'alor had opted to take the job offer. Fett was equipped with a solid gut feeling himself, he musthave noticed the strangeness which surrounded this entire operation.

Sigun reluctantly detached his gaze from the wonders of natural beauty and glanced at his comrades. Piett had still not given up watching their alor'ad. For a moment it even looked like he was about to touch Vizsla's shoulder, before Yaella, the much more intelligent woman with soft yellow plating stopped, his hand just short of being chopped of by the agitated swordswoman. Sigun rolled his eyes.

To think these di'kute had stood by his side in countless conflicts to date… But despite their peculiarities each man and woman of his group had earned their title of hardened and skillful warrior in combat. He would unhesitatingly trust them with his life, and had done so on more than one occasion in the past decades. They had insisted on pulling this through, had proposed the idea that the Governour just didn't want his high-and-mighty pals to notice his inability to deal with some measly insurgents on his home turf. And Sigun had to admit- the explanation sounded quite reasonable, despite what he felt in his gut. Those within power don't ever want to lose it again. It was basically a universal law at this point.

How long would the reign of a Republic high official last if the System Council was to hear of this kind of loss of actual territorial power? Even if it wasn't a high-n'-mighty core world it still sang of incompetence if the governmental executive forces were incapable of striking down what essentially boiled down to some pesky backwater peasants making a fuss.  
It was much easier to hire a group of very expensive, but highly discreet mercenaries known for honoring their contract terms and absolute thoroughness in dealing with the encountered problems.

The snowflakes continued their graceful descent, once in a while settling on his black t-visor.

Sigun wanted to believe, he really did. Fett had never steered them wrong before. Perhaps his oh-so trusty gut feeling had lost its touch?

A click in his comm line announced the beginning of a conversation (born out of stress relief for his comrades or captain, who knew). "Is it even legal for a Republic Governor to contract us and squash his little rebellion? I bet there's some shabla law against it." Ah, one born out of boredom, it was.

Sigun just expulsed air loudly, not even dignifying that with a response. In his stead Yaella answered, sounding about as annoyed at the lack of professionalism as he felt. "Who fekkin' cares? I just want my damn money, and so should you."

The other one was not getting the hint, it seemed. "But what if the Republic suddenly decides it doesn't like our contracting work here? Fett is ill-advised to go along with any of these Republic chakaare. Working with them has never led Mandalorians to lasting prosperity- rather the opposite."

"Yeah", another one chimed in, "I don't want to see a Republic courtroom from the inside."

That earned the man- a shaggy Bothan in maroon armour- a merciless whack against the unprotected part of his neck. "You are planning for an arrest by the Republic?" Yusani Viszla retrieved the flat side of her beskad from the Bothan's neck and pierced the frozen ground between his legs with vehemence. "You would have to be a very wimpy puppy for that to happen, don't you think? Now ne'johaa!" The furry vod visibly flinched at the fierceness in the woman's voice.

Before long that specific strand of conversation died, and not without their alor'ad's help. Sigun was glad. He had no desire to think about the centuries he would have to spend behind plasma bars if the Republic judicial system got to have the last word.

Yes, it was always risky to deal with the Galactic Republic. Similar caution applied for any groups or governments that thought themselves morally superior. Hustlers, gangster, pirates- they all acted according to the very simplistic and straightforward call of money. As long as you weren't a threat for their business, they couldn't care less about you. But the ethical and moral defenders of all sentient beings? They were motivated by sophisticated rules and guidelines which all-out commanded them to take action against such 'immoral' groups like the Mando'ade. It was why they had always clashed- The Republic didn't know what issues not to stick their delicate, powdered noses into, and the Mandalorians of the past had never let a challenge quite as great as the Republic's slide. It had almost cost them everything, repeatedly. Sigun personally was more than happy that the last few generations of Mand'alor didn't actively seek battle with the Galactic Republic. Mandalore wasn't ready for it the moment and probably wouldn't be for a long time.

Only these Kyr'tsad chakaare didn't seem to understand the importance of keeping a low profile in current intergalactic affairs.

Even better so that after they had fulfilled their part of this deal and sacked their entitlement, Fett had already planned a follow-up trip towards the little womp rats' hiding system. Sigun was sure going to help their dear vode to an exclusive excursion into the inner anatomy of the humanoid body. Lesson one: The intestinum tenue makes for a great and tearproof garotte. The few people who had gotten a limited first peek at this life lesson hadn't been too keen to repeat it. Not that they could've, but… Sigun was a man of repetitions. They made for an exquisite way of learning and -hmpf- internalizing.

Another click. Sigun's eye snapped towards the channel display in his HUD. He grit his teeth. Viszla had been excluded.

"Why did the alor'ad send her kids? Now we're stuck here, hoping for those two not to screw up our entire plan and, what, twiddle our thumbs while we're waiting?"  
The voice sounded suspiciously like the big-mouth from before. Some people never learn.

"I know, vod", the Bothan joined in, "I don't feel happy with entrusting all of this effort onto some half-grown pups."

Okay, that was it. He was not going to listen to these two di'kute drag Viszla's aliit through the mud.

Sigun rose and slowly wrapped his torn cape around the corpus of his assault rifle while striding towards the two dissidents, listening with one ear to the increasingly insulting banter of the two.

"I'm not a twiddle-fan myself. I want my money. The older one- he can manage. I believe that, honestly. But the kid?" The Bothan harrumphed, ignoring Sigun building himself up in front of the crouching alien. "If I lose even one credit due to them screwing up-"

Sigun interrupted the sentence by waving with his tightly wrapped rifle. He could hear Yaella and Piett snicker over the comm line. Sigun personally didn't feel like laughing.

"Hey 'vod', you feel bored and don't wanna twiddle your thumbs?" The Bothan stared, the anonymous t-shape of his visor giving nothing away.

Sigun abruptly slammed the rifle point-blank into the alien's buy'ce. He knew from experience that it hurt like a brick to the face, despite the armour.

The Bothan's head smacked backwards and he toppled helplessly into the ankle-deep snow.

"Why don't you count the snowflakes on the ground?", Sigun growled. "I could help you even more with your boredom." He leaned forward threateningly. "You could gather up your shabla teeth while you're at it."

The Bothan looked up and past Sigun. "You'll reget this, mir'sheb." Hoping for help from Viszla, no doubt.

But the woman didn't intervene. She was a vanguard for the policy Back up your words with deeds, and their furry vod was not in the position to do so.

Indeed Viszla was just standing there with a slightly tipped helmet, mildly curios. She probably wondered what this was all about, but her fellow Mandalorians' personal differences were of no concern to her. So long as they didn't actively hinder the mission she wouldn't stop them.

If she knew the topic of their little dispute though the Bothan would already hold his cleanly removed incisors in his paws by now.

"It's not up for discussion", Sigun added with a growl. "Be quiet- or I'll make you."

But the shaggy-furred alien -defeated, disgraced and mocked- didn't want to let it rest. "Is this about your little di'kut, Sigun?"

Sigun halted in his step, right in the middle of turning around and letting it go. Oh no, he did not just-  
"Ah", the Bothan purred, "I knew it. You still feel guilty for your lapse in judgement, don't you?"

The chakaar was advised to stop talking if he wanted to keep his fur. Or his ability to breathe.

"Guess what- dead aliit will stay dead, no matter if you protect other, similar kiddos, you uptight, old-"

The piece of wet fur could kiss Piett's shebs for the less than friendly punch in the shoulder.  
Sigun himself had always sneered at the di'kute who let themselves be guided by their emotions. It was unprofessional, and he prided himself on being a cut-out for the work kind of guy. But just a moment ago he had very nearly rammed a blade into a vod for the first time in his more than forty decades of life.

There was only one explanation for why he had grown so furious: The Bothan hadn't hit far from the mark. Yes, he missed his son. Not a single day would pass without Sigun reciting his name in honour of him. And perhaps the young Viszla reminded him a bit of his ad'ika. Same thick skull, same heart.

The admonition of the Uvai kid and the following war chant on the Jaster's Legacy, instigated by the young ad'ika- they had reminded him of his promise towards his son.

Sigun balled his fist. Blue armour for reliability.

He was not going to let other aliit pay the price for his shortcomings ever again.

This unfortunately included keeping up the fighting capacity of the Mando'ade who had stayed behind to serve as reinforcements to their young scouts.

He sneered at the thought of letting the di'kut go with his face intact.

But Sigun was not going to underestimate their enemies. They would need every single warrior for this to go smoothly- even the Bothan chakaar.

He wanted to address the maroon-armoured alien with some well-aimed verbal threats at least, but didn't quite trust his ability to stay cool if the Bothan decided to gtry and et a rise out of him again. As such, he decided to be a wise man and keep his mouth shut.

Sigun nodded at Piett in thanks and began unwrapping his rifle again. The cloth had ripped, with one lone strip lodging itself at the blaster's trigger. And while he worked on making his rifle ready for combat again, his mind drifted back to memories from the past, filled with pain beyond remedy,

He would never forget his biggest failure. How could he? It had cost him everything.

I'm so sorry, ad'ika. But I swore to you, and I'll stand by my everlasting oath. No aliit shall ever be harmed by my misjudgment again.

He would make sure their vode made it out in one piece, no matter the cost to himself.

Out of the corner of his eyes he saw the Bothan gesture between them both. The reluctant grunt that followed- apparently the universal sound for a grudging apology- was acknowledged by a grunt of his own.

It was all forgiven and forgotten, even though five minutes ago he was ready to bash the man's teeth in. That's just how Mandos were.

They didn't have time for fooling around.

The ad'ike counted on them to react swiftly when they signaled for reinforcements.

He snapped the safety off and cocked his blaster rifle.

And Sigun was ready for the call sign.

Stay alive, vode. We're here if you need us.

"Fierfek!, Uvai cursed, before kneeling and extending his shimmering vibroblade.

The Wookie roared and pushed at Uvai's chestplate with one hairy paw. Or that's what it looked like. In reality her ner'vod was launched across the room like a ragdoll.

Aran felt her eyes widen inevitably. She had heard about the fierceness and unmatched strength the gigantic Wookie patriarchs possessed, but seeing it live and in action was left much more of a lasting impression on her mind, similar to the new dent in the wall, shaped like Uvai's back plate. And to think that this one was only 2.30m, the teenager version of a Wookie…

Gotta take care of that problem quick!

Aran took aim -where do you even aim to take out a shabla Wookie?! -, but before she could pull the trigger a barked "Stop!" made her cease all action. Uvai desperately waved his hand, vibroblade still extended. "Stop! We need it alive!"

Aran shook her head, eyes never leaving her shaggy target. "Are you crazy? It is a shabla Wookie!"

Uvai pushed himself up, then, agilely landing on the balls of his feet. "No matter. We need the info."

He stalked back towards it, blade glittering in the weak light of a single naked lightbulb. "We can take the walking carpet."

Aran turned towards him in horror, her professionalism slipping for just a heartbeat. "Are you kidding? The 'walking carpet' just threw you across the room, effortlessly!"

Her blaster's aim slipped for just a single second, but that was all the alien needed.

Aran realized her mistake too late. The Wookie lunged forwards towards Uvai's dropped heavy blaster, its intelligent brown eyes already assessing the situation. The only thing she had left to do as the muzzle swung around towards her was to pray silently to all the Gods Mandalorians had praised centuries ago, that her buir had actually purchased the expensive alloy.

Blue raced towards her, and she couldn't tell whether the sound that followed stemmed from her parted lips or the impact of hot plasma on metal.

She had never been shot by a live blaster from this distance before.

It hit her like a sledgehammer.

Once, twice. She staggered a few steps back, trying not to let the carbine slip out of her fingers. The Wookie crashed to the floor and with a primal roar a red suit of armor launched itself at the shaggy fur, wrestling it on the ground like a rabid akk. The vibroblade glistened with red.

She couldn't breathe for a moment or two. Then all of a sudden everything crashed into her at once. The noise – a high-pitched ring in her ears, grunting from the twisted mass of limbs in front of her. The pain. Aran sunk to her knees, clutching her side. "Gah!"

Breathing was tricky. A lead weight pressed down on her thorax, hindering more than a gasp of air to enter her lungs. Aran had to close her eyes. She felt for the general area of searing pain and gasped when her glove caught on the charred rims of the holes.

Stars sparkled, and her vision narrowed. When she could finally focus again, sucking in a couple of measured breaths, Aran tasted metal. Must've been her lip.

Osik, that stung!

"Hairy…. chakaar!", she panted while propping herself up with one hand. She fought the urge to prod the wound again and forced her heavy head up.

Just then did Uvai ram a glistening vibroblade into the Wookie's lower abdomen. A vital area for most sentients.

But all it accomplished was to infuriate the Wookie even more.

Waves of pain rolled through her abdomen and the room tilted sideways for a split second.

Still, she had already determined she was going to stand up. She couldn't give in to the pain. Her vod needed help with that beast.

There could be nothing else on her mind now.

Somewhere along the line she must've let go of the carbine because her gloved finger caught on the sling when she tried to keep herself from slipping.

Her pain-filled hiss made a silver-rimmed T-visor whip in her direction. "Ad'ika!"

She wanted to yell at him, to make him focus, haran, but she couldn't do more than pant a "Chakaar", before the hairy beast grabbed her vod and tried to break down the wall with him again.

Uvai crashed into the raw bricks once more, grunting when his armored body hit the floor. He shook his head once, then raised an extended vibroblade, fierce fighting spirit not at all dampened by his repeated forceful imitation of a sledgehammer. but she coul "Fierfek, what'm I supposed to do to make it stay down?!"

His tone had changed, though. It no longer held desperate need. Uvai had confirmation that she was alive at least, and this only spurred him into wanting to subdue the massive alien more. Nobody hurt a Mandalorian's aliit and got away with it.

In the meantime Aran had fought herself back to her feet, but she had trouble aiming her carbine straight.

Her vision swam. The Wookie must've hit her harder than she had initially thought.

Shabla shock! She didn't have time for this now.

Aran ground her teeth and brought her arms up, aiming at the furry equivalent to the human anatomy's spine root. This ought to make this shabla fierfek stop fighting.

She pulled the trigger and her leg broke away under her, the blue bolt uselessly smacking into the ceiling. Aran crashed to the ground. Plaster rained down on her visor, but she didn't notice it in her pain-induced confusion. What? How?!

Her abdomen was on fire, but she turned amidst the roaring in her ears -Wookie?- and saw. A light-turquois hand grabbing tightly onto her right ankle. A bluish-green alien hand, attached to a very much alive Twi'lek.

How in haran…?!

Aran's vision swam, and she shook her head to clear her thoughts.

This, unfortunately, gave the Twi'lek enough time to launch himself at her with a blood-coated hunting knife. Her hunting knife, to be exact. A quick glance confirmed that yes, her sheath was empty. He must've used the moment of confusion when he had toppled her down to his advantage. Sneaky alien chakaar.hunting knife, to be exact.

She blocked the first slash with her gauntlet, gladly trusting in the durability of the armor plates. Against a heavy blaster rifle at point-blank range it wouldn't do her much good. But a knife it could take, no matter how sharp.

Aran inwardly praised the human body for the godsend that was adrenaline. Without it this would've been least now she didn't see Twin-leks anymore.

The Twi'lek switched targets and aimed at her visor instead.

Between a painfilled hiss and a pant for more oxygen, Aran fought the urge to look to the side when she heard another loud growl and a distressed grunt from Uvai. Finish your own battle before focusing on others', the mantra resounded in her head. She sucked in some air, careful to never let off in her iron defense. Her muscles were strained and the wounds throbbed, but it was manageable for the moment. She aimed at the Twi'lek's side, her fist balled to maximize the impact force. She had to get off the ground somehow, had to gain the advantage over him, and fast.

Her opponent though had other plans for her. He half blocked, half tanked her swing and leaned in for another knife attack, this time utilizing his entire bodyweight. Aran was taken aback by his basically brushing her punch aside - she had never expected a lanky Twi'lek like him to be capable of tanking a hit like that, especially considering that human and Twi'leki anatomy were quite similar. Her surprise almost let his attack succeed without resistance. He could not hit her abdomen with force like that, or it was game-over for her. Not even the sweet smell of adrenaline could help her stand up and keep fighting after that.

How was the shabla alien even alive and fighting? She had shot him before, hadn't she? At least he had crumbled and flopped to the floor like a wet sack of vegetables.hadhad

Aran blocked his arms thrusting down towards her, but her position -backwards on the floor with no gripe or chance to push him away- made it harder than expected.

Another Wookie roar let her grit her teeth. They were attracting way too much attention. The transmitter hadn't even been sabotaged yet, nor were their reinforcements on the way. And when the insurgents finally decided to investigate where the shabla battle noise was coming from they would have Uvai's and her gett'se on a silver platter.

Aran had to get out of this disadvantageous situation. She did not want to test how long it was going to take the Twi'lek to target her sides or neck, only protected by her insulated body glove. Or the bright-red and blinking target of her already-wasted abdomen.

This time he stabbed rather than trying to cut her. Either he thought like a tactician and counted on obstructing her field of view to buy for some time, or his strategy plainly consisted of hitting different areas to see which he could damage the easiest. Either way – she had trouble keeping the knife, shab, her knife away from her visor.

Her arms quivered slightly, the blaster wounds taking their toll on her stamina.

She was not so certain anymore of the material's durability against ninety plus kilograms of determined Twi'lek. Even if the visor persisted, the knife might just slide off towards her basically unprotected neck, and then it would be over for her.

Aran gritted her teeth, panting in exertion. Why do you fail me now, oh almighty adrenaline?

They were locked in a deadly stalemate. Both knew though that sooner or later her strength would run out- and then he would strike. Aran grunted from the effort to keep him away from her head, desperately looking for a way to break free. She felt her strength seep away slowly, and with every second her wounds seared and burned stronger, straining the delicate balance between the Twi'lek and her even more. Shab!

Her opponent must've noticed her distress, because his face twisted into a snarling mask of confidence, mocking her efforts to hold him off. "Not so powerful anymore, are we?", the Twi'lek huffed, clearly getting comfortable on his high horse.

Aran couldn't even dignify that with a response. The blaster wounds in her abdomen pulsated with pain. The Wookie may have saved his partner's shebs here, because without the distraction of the wounds she would most certainly have turned the squabble around by now. The Twi'lek left his sides foolishly open, too preoccupied with taunting her. Not that she could do anything about it right now.

Still, she had not lost yet. And giving up was never an option. Not for a Viszla, and certainly not for a Mandalorian.

She just had to find an opening…

The Wookie growled again and something heavy crashed into the wall behind them. Aran almost cried out in joy. The Twi'lek instinctively whipped his head around to observe the threat, and Aran chose that exact moment to let go of his arms with one hand. Due to the unexpected lack of a resistance the alien crashed face-first into the floor right of her, his head slamming onto the cold floor with a wet Twack. Aran twisted the knife out of his momentarily strengthless hands and aimed an armoured punch at his neck, just to be sure.

She rolled to the side and through some wooden splinters -apparently a shattered stool-, teeth-gnashingly ignoring the screaming ache in her abdomen, to pick up her carbine.

The turquois lekku of the alien spread on the floor at her feet twitched before he turned to look up at her. The confidence had vanished from his eyes, instead he settled for whimpering. Light green blood trickled down his nonexistent hairline. "Please!"

Aran ignored his pleading eyes and pistol-whipped the squishy mass of tentacles into next morning. This time he would not stand up that fast. At least that's what she hoped. His involuntary movement had caused a tiny viol to roll away from his foot. A stimulant. Ah. So that's why he was still standing. Stims. She needed stims! But-

She wanted to halt for a moment, to gather her senses, but this had to end quickly. Uv'ika!

While she had fought the unexpected battle, her vod had been held up with the Wookie. The only opponent that had ever towered above the tall Mandalorian.

Aran did not intend to underestimate her partner's capabilities, but matching a Wookie in hand-to-hand combat was basically impossible. Those beasts were feared for a reason.

Now the red-clad Mando needed every helping hand he could get.

She whipped around and brought up her carbine just in time to see the hairy alien lift another chair; an attempt to launch it at the still blaster-less Uvai, no doubt. Aran gritted her teeth once- the sudden movement had pulled on her wounds.

She'd take a stimulant as soon as this was finished. Prioritize! She had to endure for now.  
Aran activated her external speaker and barked in her best Fett-imitation, "Hey, you hairy chakaar, I wouldn't do that if I were you."

To make her point undoubtedly clear she nodded at the already ready-for-launch chair with her helmet, cocking the carbine for added significance.

The Wookie wasn't stupid, far from it, actually, and so it knew when it was outmatched. It glanced once at the motionless form of the Twi'lek to Aran's feet and then raised its woolly paws after unceremoniously dropping the chair.

Aran motioned for it to turn around and get on its knees, gritting her teeth through the effort. She had muted her external speakers immediately after offering her speech. And luckily so, because she was cursing like an old space-sailor now. She needed those stims, and some painkillers too.

Uvai wordlessly picked up his blaster and bound the Wookie with some improvised handcuffs. It was all for show, really. Now that they both had their weapons the Wookie was as good as dead, and it knew. One wrong move and it would have matching frontal lobe holes with its pals.

The click in her comm connection together with the prolonged silence that followed acted as an indicator for Uvai's need to hear her talk. Aran turned sideways. No need to let him see her wounds just yet; not when not even she herself had gotten a look at it to gauge the damage done by the Wookie.

Instead she dry-swallowed once, uttering, "You alright, ner'vod?" with a surprisingly steady voice. It was a rhetorical question, its only use the reassurance of her brother in everything but blood. Uvai was not going to show her any harm done by the alien, regardless of any inquiry. Stubborn di'kut.

To her relief he looked fine, as far as she could tell. He limped a little, but the hairy beast hadn't done any significant damage, it seemed. Aran exhaled, relief flooding through her system. This could've ended a lot worse. It wasn't exactly a patriarch they had been fighting, but even the 'smaller' Wookies were easily capable of ripping out an average humanoid's arm and would probably beat you to death with the bloody stump if they so desired.

"We should get working- the noise surely has ruffled some feathers." Aran intentionally downplayed the clusterfuck this 'easy' breaching had degraded to. 'No threat to fear from the bumbling di'kute', eh, Aran? Who's the bumbling di'kut now?

She shook her head - now was not the time to discuss individual mistakes or injuries. They both stood on their own accord and bleeding out wasn't in the realm of possibilities for the next couple of minutes. In other words: they were fine.

Uvai acknowledged her words by letting his rifle drop to his side by the sling and moving towards the transmitter. He did pat her shoulder on the way though, the smallest form of comfort and reassurance he could offer at a time like this.

Aran felt the smallest of smiles tug at the corners of her mouth as she turned to watch both the Wookie and the door. Genuine happiness tugged at her heart. Despite all the chaos around them she could always count on Uvai to make her pull through, be it through fiercely fighting on despite the odds or simple gestures of affection and affiliation.

At the same time she really had to get a good, thorough look at those blaster wounds. She had to be sure it hadn't been just the adrenaline keeping her upright. Otherwise she may very well be due for slumping down after the fight had ended just now, and that would in turn put Uvai at an unacceptable risk.

Aran snuck a glance at her wounded side when she changed position to have a better angle on the Wookie's back. She made sure not to tip her helmet further than absolutely necessary. There could be no indicator for anyone that she was incapacitated in any way.

Careful inspection had her raise her eyebrow in grudging respect. The Wookie had aimed his shots well, despite the unfavourable circumstances: Both had pierced her armor, burning straight through her thermo-kute and making for very ugly and very painful lacerations of her skin. Luckily the circumstances for the Wookie's valiant dash had been adverse, or the plasma bolts might've hit a more vital area and left a bit more than a cauterized farewell in the first few layers of skin and body fat.

It was still painful as haran.

Uvai inserted the signal disruptor into the low-tech system and went to work, most likely trying to find out where the other bases were situated.

Other hostiles would most likely gather here any moment now. If they hadn't noticed the battle noise (considering their widespread incompetence Aran did honestly consider that possibility), then at least the sudden lack of a comm connection would make them suspicious.

"Ad'ika." Uvai coughed, before continuing, "Comm Yu'buir. They have to get off their shebs and over here, yesterday."

Aran couldn't agree more. They needed reinforcements, ASAP.

She selected their squad's joined channel with a blink of her eye and hailed Yusani. It took less than a second for the connection to establish. "Adi'ka, sitrep. What took you so long?" Yusani's voice was still light, if not even a little teasing in tone.

Aran drew in some air, not liking what she had to say. The blaster wounds throbbed painfully. "Buir, requesting reinforcements." She paused for a moment, certain that Yusani was already contemplating landing their spacecraft straight in the middle of the insurgent camp. Eh, scrub Dha'werd, it's speed we need now.

"It might get hot in here soon." Uvai shot her a glance over the shoulder. Aran ignored him, pointedly not mentioning her wounds or the shabla Wookie kneeling to her right. Those were details buir didn't need to know at the moment. The slight hesitation in Uvai's movements spoke of his unwillingness to let this slide, but he was a warrior on a mission now. He knew he had to prioritize, and squabbling over withheld details surely wouldn't get them out of this mess.

"Already on the move, ad'ike. ETA in twenty max." Yusani slid into the role of alor'ad immediately. The slight twinge of worry in her voice hovering right below the cutting steel was still clearly audible to anyone willing to listen.

Aran sighed. I'm alive, buir. That's all that counts for now.

"Dig in, and keep your chins up. K'oyacyi! Yusani out."

The click in her comm indicated the end of the conversation. Good. Now they at least had the chance of backup, if they held the line long enough.

Wordless consensus had them split work, assorting the two parts to whomever had the highest chance at working the variables to their common advantage. This had Uvai working on the comm device, which left her to guard entryway and prisoners.

Still no sign from rebels coming to the aliens' aid.

The strained silence in the room was only interrupted by their prisoners. The knocked-out Twi'lek groaned once, probably due to the bump on his head, courtesy of Aran's trusty carbine. By now it had swollen to a sizeable lump, deep purple in colour. The Wookie responded with a low growl, turning his head slightly to glance at his fallen comrade. Was that… worry Aran picked out there?

"Shut up and face the wall", she barked over the external speakers. The Wookie complied wordlessly. Contrary to its species' reputation it sure knew how to take commands. Slave traders would kill for a specimen like this.

"Their comm system is down. No help for them, at least", Uvai announced over the furious tapping on the ancient comm console. He tried to cover his rasping breath with forced lightness, but Aran didn't fall for it. She knew her vod to well for that.  
She fought the urge to hit the Wookie over the head with the matte-black weapon for hurting him. That'd be highly unprofessional, not to mention it would leave Uvai's vulnerable back entirely unprotected.

Instead she turned off the light in the cabin. The helmet's night-vision function switching on automatically would've been a nice feature right now, but she didn't have the credits for a sophisticated system like that yet. She settled for activating it manually by blinking at the icon on the HUD's right side.

This sure would make it harder for any hostiles entering the cabin to hurt them. Humanoids had trouble adjusting to changing light conditions, if you threw flashing bolts of light into the mix.

It was an easy advantage, and Aran would take anything that gave them a one-up on their opponents. Besides, identifying them was one thing, hurting them something entirely else.

She shifted on her feet, trying to take the strain of her wounds. Shab, that mindset hadn't served her well tonight, had it? Underestimate your enemy and pay the price, eh?

Damn arrogance got to her head, and now Uvai had to pay the price. He had been wounded and while not fatally, it undoubtedly would hinder him in an all-out battle with the rebel remnants.

Aran felt for the holes burned into her beskargam and winced could've ended a lot worse, though. She herself had been lucky the Wookie had had to take the shots whilst falling. There was no telling where they really had been aimed at, but Aran was certain the Wookie hadn't wanted to just tickle her with some hot plasma.

But maybe they needn't worry. There still was no sign of the insurgents even noticing their little skirmish.

"I'm now checking the logs to see whom they contacted last- maybe we can compare with the others and triangulate their positions."

Aran nodded at their prisoners. "Elek, or we could use these two di'kute to gather some intel."

Uvai grunted in acknowledgement. "Either way, we have to hold up until Yu'buir arrives. Won't do us any good if we have the data but cannot use it anymore because we're kyrayc." He accentuated the last part with a slicing gesture across his neck.

Agreed. Now to further reduce the risk of that happening…

Aran produced two tiny syringes from her belt pouch. She popped off the caps and injected the liquids right into her side, close to the burned-in entry wounds. It didn't take long for the agents' effects to take hold. She felt the energy flood through her veins, all indicators of exhaustion washed away by the warm stream. Aran closed her eyes for a short moment, savouring the blissful levity. Ah, sweet juice of two dozen hours of sleep.

The searing pain was all but a dull throb in the back of her mind now.

She felt like a newborn, ready for another round. And this time, they were at an advantage again. Just like it should always be.

She carelessly dropped the injectors and pushed them aside with her armoured boot. Using stims wasn't a long-term solution, she knew. But for the moment it brought her back to fighting capabilities, and that's what counted.

She regripped the carbine, checking the charge of her power cell and reloading a fresh one in one fluid motion. Better be safe than sorry.

Uvai didn't stop tapping away at the old comm console safe for cocking his rifle once and holding it at the ready, close to his working hands.

Aran wanted to watch him work, fascinated by his vast knowledge of various pieces of weaponry and now also technology and slicing, but opted to stick to her line of work. She was just scanning the cold night outside for approaching hostiles, when suddenly the camp's alarm started blaring. The Wookie growled once, obviously scenting a chance at freedom and wanting in on it.

Aran tsked at that. "Was about time they noticed. I assumed they all were braindead til now." She glanced back at her vod, still occupied with skimming through the data. He seemed unperturbed by the high-pitched alarm.

"What's your status, vod'ika?" He gave a carefree thumbs-up in response. "Downloading the data now."

She nodded curtly, focusing on the entrance again. Judging from the trampling and shouting outside they would be met with unfriendly company quite soon.

Aran took a deep breath. They only had to hold out until buir and the others came in to save their sorry shebs.

Over the noise of the alarm and the approaching footsteps though Aran had almost missed the scratchy sound of a certain obstinate, turquois alien crawling towards the lifeless bodies next to the transmitter console. "Not so fast, ner'vod", Aran barked. She kicked at his side, stopping his laughable effort to sneak past Uvai towards the dropped guns. Aran shook her head despite herself, not quite capable of keeping the tease out of her voice. "Wouldn't wanna miss out on the party starting any moment now, would we?"

She dragged the hurt alien towards the Wookie, never losing focus of the cabin's entrance. Now that she looked at it… "Ner'vod, do you still need these two?" Those di'kute would make for some nice meat shields, should the need arise.

The Twi'lek -durable fekkin thing- began quivering. Oops. The external speakers were online still? What a shame.

"You'd better focus on the chakaare trying to crash our little party here than intimidate our new friends", Uvai reprimanded. And he was right. Even in the near-darkness of the cabin she was an easy target, standing in the open like this.  
As if on cue a light blue blaster bolt burned into the floor before her boots. "Hostiles!"

Uvai's red helmet snapped around before he grabbed his rifle and bolted to the opposite corner of the room. Aran slid into cover, alternating between watching the entrance and the prisoners. She felt uneasy turning her back towards a Wookie and an apparently near-unkillable Twi'lek.

At least their enemies could only come from one direction now. There was no back entrance to the cabin.

She glanced at Uvai. He wasn't easy to make out without night vision. He had set his rifle on a banged up tiny table and seemed entirely focused on the front entrance. Just as the first enemy stepped into the cabin, carelessly letting his blaster muzzle point at the floor, Uvai unleashed a volley of blue light on the poor di'kut.

Their opponents adapted and retreated to the sides, hoping to escape the deadly blaster fire.

The Twi'lek covered his head and hid behind the hairy mountain of Wookie, who'd ducked and stayed low since the first shot had rang off. Apparently the only rebel with half a brain.

Aran aimed at the entrance, waiting patiently for her turn. As soon as Uvai slipped behind cover to reload, she took over, supplying suppressive fire to keep the breaching insurgents in check. He had slipped in a new magazine and imitated her tactic of waiting until the other ran out of ammo.

He used the time well, though. Just when Aran caught a middle-aged human male in the chest with a well-aimed shot, the click in her comm announced a transmission from Uvai towards their squad. "Alor'ad, Uvai here. We are trapped in the transmitter building, hostiles attacking. Need backup ASAP. Uvai out."

Just as he had finished the sentence, Aran had to drop into cover, fingering for a fresh magazine in her belt.

She glanced around, searching for an alternate exit. It was in vain. Blank, plaster-less walls surrounded them on all sides. The front exit was the only exit.

Shab, this was a death trap, wasn't it? They had no way out, and the insurgents outnumbered them 40:1.

They had prodded into a Rhodian hornet's nest, and now the workers tried to sting 'em hard.

So far they had had the advantage, if one didn't count the small mishap from before, but how long could their luck realistically last?

In short time the insurgents grew a tiny bit more of a brain and kept back, opting for blindly firing into the cabin through the windows and doorway.

Fortunately they had apparently never heard of explosives.

Aran tightened her grip on the carbine. The barrel wasn't made for continuous suppressive fire, and it showed. She glanced around the corner of the transmitter, trying to assess the time til her next cue through the haze of blaster bolts swishing left and right, when something small and round came to a stop right next to her. Shab! She just had to jinx it, hadn't she?

Aran's head turned in slowmotion, her mind screaming at her to move faster. She let go of the barrel and launched herself at the tiny ball of death, using all her strength to catapult it as far away as possible. There was no time to take aim. A primed det was quite literally a ticking time bomb. The last thing she heard before burying her head under her arms was a metallic clang, and then the det blew up.

The shockwave washed over her, and for a moment she wasn't sure if she had even successfully thrown it out. Her ears were ringing, but the rest seemed to be working just fine. Shoud've activated the sound compensation though. She felt her arms and legs, no severe injury there. Slowly Aran raised her head and was astonished at what awaited her eyes. The blast had blown a clean hole in the side of the cabin they were facing, a bunch of corpses and body parts littering the place directly in front of the site. Smoke arose from the charred bodies closest to the det's impact zone.

She raised her carbine and met the remaining enemies with blaster fire, hoping against hope to discourage them from breaching now that they could quite clearly make her out amongst the rubble.

She reloaded, waiting for the flashes of blue indicating her vod was alive and well, but there was no more suppressive fire.

Aran glanced towards the left. What was Uvai thinking?

Her barked threat was suddenly stuck in her dry throat. She hadn't thrown far enough.

The damaged table he had taken cover behind was no more.

The blast of the detonator had hurled the entirety of the brick wall inwards at breakneck speed, knocking him over and burying his armoured form.

The ringing in her ears grew stronger, and she didn't care for the blaster bolts vaporizing the dirt around her feet as she stormed towards Uvai's motionless form.

"UV'IKA!"

She was sure she was screaming, but nothing reached her ears.

His usually dark red helmet now rather resembled charcoal in colour, and the silver-rimmed t-visor was parted by an ugly gash on the surface. Aran's inspection was cut short when she was thrown to the ground by an invisible force. Somehow, it was troubling to breathe. She couldn't hear and he- he was supposed to stand by her side when they faced the entirety of the insurgent camp. Another blue bolt slammed into the ground right inbetween them, violently tearing her back into reality.

Shab shab shab!

Aran groped for her carbine but couldn't find it. Luckily a heavy blaster rifle lay in reach right next to her. She turned to return fire, and as soon as the insurgents ducked their heads, she slung her vod'ika's arm around her neck and pulled him into the cover of the transmitter. Since when had the fekkin thing been on fire, anyway?

Her heart stopped for a beat when she realized their problem.

Shab, the data!

– Didn't matter, not now, anyway. The fire and smoke made for nice cover.

In the careful silence Aran used the short moment to take a deep breath and gather herself. She had an injured vod, was hopelessly outnumbered and the entire point of this operation was going up in flames just this moment.

In short, a typical day for a Viszla.

Aran grit her teeth and armed a det. One, two… She leaned out of cover when the blaster fire relented for just a moment and lobbed one of the precious thermal detonators out of the wide open front side.

The following yell and general lack of blaster fire strafing her position told her the det had had its intended effect.  
She pushed some rubble away with her gloved hand and put the rifle next to her, focusing on the careful removal of Uvai's buy'ce. Eyes and ears were sharp for anyone approaching all the while. Oh, this will get me the longest possible lecture and a nice smack up the head by buir, she groaned. Technically she should secure the sector first, but how was she going to do that, alone against an entire camp? Perhaps she was just straining to find an excuse to tend to her vod; in the end she didn't care.

His face was a normal colour, no blood in or around mouth, ears, nose. She was just forcing back his eyelids, when Uvai's eyes abruptly shot open on their own accord and he rasped out a dry cough. "Glad to see you're alright, ner'vod." Manda, she was glad.

He rasped something at her, before rolling to the side in a coughing fit. If she read his lips correctly, he had said something along the line of "no screaming".

Huh. Figured she was still having trouble hearing right.

Her body rocked with realization. If she didn't hear herself well enough to discern talking from screaming…  
"Get down!" She pushed Uvai to the ground and grabbed the heavy blaster rifle. Just as expected the insurgents had breached the cabin, searching for the two of them. The Wookie was just pointing in her direction with an angry growl, the makeshift cuffs dangling uselessly from one hairy paw, when she lit up the nearest pair of men with a volley of blue plasma. Oh no, you don't!

The men went down in smoke, but the other armed enemies scattered to strafe her with gunfire from multiple directions. A lucky bolt grazed her, cleanly blowing the yellow paint off her shoulder pad. Aran took this as her cue to retreat. She ducked behind cover, desperately searching for the second one of Baviir's thermal dets.  
Uvai still seemed a bit disoriented. He pointed at her side, coughed once, then rasped something; she couldn't quite hear through the cotton in her ears.

Aran ignored his second attempt at speaking to her and just pushed the rifle at him. "Covering fire, now."

He nodded once, the necessity registering into his brain quickly and forcefully. Or maybe he wasn't even disoriented. His assured posture and precise positioning sure spoke for him, seeing as he couldn't.

Ah, there! Aran raised the shining metal ball triumphantly, a grin spreading across her face for the first time since this started going downhill.

This should keep their opponents off for the moment.

The two of them desperately needed a moment to breathe and gather their resources, and Aran needed her carbine.

"Cover, now!", she barked, but Uvai stopped her from priming the det. What?

Slowly but surely it registered in her mind that she wasn't hearing any blaster fire anymore. Or at least she thought so; couldn't quite trust her hearing after all.

A smile crept onto Uvai's dirt-smudged face, the blaster rifle now held against his shoulder in a relaxed grip. "Took you long enough, alor'ad."

Aran's eyes lit up. Reinforcements. Finally!

She put away the det and stood up, shaking her head in the process. The ringing in her ears had subsided to a background hum by now. Annoying but manageable. Aran moved out of cover and sure enough, buir stood in what was left of the cabin entrance, her beskad glinting in the fire light like a sword made of flames. "Well well, looks like someone got a little overexcited", she mocked with a pointed look at the comm console. Uvai's datapad was still stuck in the connector, now fused to the transmitter eternally by the melting-hot force of the flames licking at it. Aran grimaced. Osik.

"There goes our intel", the grey-clad Mando behind Yusani sighed.

"Ah, don't worry, ner'vod", Uvai said, "we have a Plan B." He picked up his soot-smudged helmet, pointing at the relatively unscathed right corner of the cabin almost as an afterthought. There, bunched up in the twilight, sat that di'kutla Twi'lek and the Wookie, intelligent brown eyes alternating between glancing at Uvai's dirtied face and the Mando pointing a rifle at his head. Aran stifled a laugh. That Twi'lek really was unkillable.

Yusani acknowledged this by a nod of her helmeted head. "Now that that's cleared up, what in haran happened here?" Her distorted voice sounded vaguely amused. She motioned at Uvai's general, roughed-up appearance.

In the background Aran saw more of her people round up the remnants of the camp inhabitants. Occasionally the odd blaster shot rang out, most likely a mercy kill of a fallen enemy too badly hurt to live on, let alone walk.

"Ever fought a Wookie hand-to-hand, Yu'buir?" The gold-armored warrior tipped her head to the side, obviously confused. Her kama wafted in the light night's breeze, symbolic for the long warrior tradition that had led them to victory once more. "Me neither, before tonight at least."

Yusani stared at Uvai incredulously, before bursting into a laughing fit. "That's the attitude, ad'ike! Always push your limits!"

While the others were occupied with laughing, the ruined and burning comm console all but forgotten, Aran crouched in the rubble, retrieving her carbine from a pile of bricks. Huh. She didn't remember the wall's remnants landing so close to her when she had undergone her desperate sprint towards Uvai.

She cleared some dust off the handle and rechecked the gas chamber and power cell. Luckily the weapon was a lot more durable than its exterior might make you believe. In a minute it was loaded and ready for usage, if just a little dirtier than before. She slung the sling around her neck and let the blaster hang at her side, motioning at Uvai and Yusani to continue. She couldn't afford their scrutinity right now, not when both of them would easily spot the scorched armour plates, earning her a whack over the head and a place behind the lines til she saw a medic.

As soon as Aran exited the miserable residue of the cabin and stood in the alley she took in a deep breath.

The fresh night air filtered into her helmet, finally replacing the stench of burning duraplast.

On her way she passed the Twi'lek and Wookie, now guarded by four warriors, with the Wookie naturally earning the attention of three of them, while the Twi'lek quivered under the anonymous glare of the same grey-clad man who had accompanied her buir into the cabin.

She made eye contact with the turquois alien. Check mate again, ner'vod.

The green eyes weren't filled with the expected confusion, though, and neither with fear. Unusual for aruetiise to not feel uncertainty when an anonymous black t-visor glared at them. But what was ordinary in their line of work anyway?

Maybe the alien really was just cold. The tips of his lekku were such a deep navy colour that they were certainly going to fall off if he had to remain unprotected in the cold much longer. Aran shrugged and moved on. His loss.

She took note of the burn marks on the walls all around her. They clearly stemmed from her fellow Mando'ade's blasters, judging from the littered coat-clad bodies all around.

The fighting had been quick and fierce. The rebels had tried to smother their attack when the rest of the troop had finally invaded the camp, cutting into their flanks and defenceless backside. Just like so many enemies before them they hadn't stood a chance.

Aran felt a grin slip onto her masked face. She was proud to belong to the superior fighting force yet again.

Uvai walked in front of him, detailing the troubles they'd encountered to Yu'buir and laying out his plans for salvaging what was left, no doubt. The colour had returned to his face, which made her grin grimly. The shock had worn off, then. Aran could only hope that this was the only harm the older warrior had carried out of the battle.

Instead of walking next to them, she trailed a bit behind buir and vod, unwilling to let them see her wounds. She counted four as of yet; one had burned straight through her side. Aran could see the blackened flesh.

She had wondered why breathing was harder than usual, hadn't she? Thank manda she had used those stims before all haran broke loose, or she might've doubled over by now.

"Hey kid, you alright?"

She winced at Sigun's drawling voice from behind. He had taken of his helmet at some point, cradling it under his left arm with the ease that came from performing the motion innumerably before her time. His brows were furrowed, the scar running down his chin and into his body glove's collar only amplifying his wary expression.

Aran hadn't even noticed his approach- Either he was purposely sneaking up on her, or there was still something wrong with her hearing. She was in favour of option two, even though the ringing had calmed down to a low hum she barely even noticed anymore. She made a mental note to have it checked as soon as they finished up around here.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Vor entye." She had hoped to escape his scrutiny with the hasty acknowledgement, but obviously the man had similar instincts as buir and Uvai. The older warrior wasn't going to let her go that easily.  
"Come on, stop lying. I can see the burn holes in your armor plates." He put a hand on her shoulder, determination in his very stance.

Aran was just about to reiterate another attempt at deflection, her chest puffed up in a fake display of strength, when Sigun sighed. "You really are stubborn, aren't you?" He smiled sadly, his eyes dark with emotion.

Aran was at a loss of words. She didn't expect this open display of emotions from the withdrawn warrior.

"Believe an old man when I say there is no honour to gain from hiding your wounds, ad'ika. What glory could there ever be in dying uselessly, when you could've stood beside your aliit for decades more to come?"

Aran's gaze dropped to the ground. She didn't understand why the experienced warrior suddenly felt the need to share his wisdom with her, of all people, but she couldn't really retort anything. He did have a point.

In the long run hiding her injuries would probably hinder them all, might even cost them dearly in the pursuit of their mission.

But Aran wouldn't be Aran if she didn't at least try to enforce her thick skull.

"I'm not going to step out of this, Sigun." She pinned him in place with a fierce glare.

Aran had to blink in surprise though when the older warrior chuckled at her, the bandoleer of teeth and bones slung across his chestplate jingling like a wind chime. Somehow she had come to expect a bit more of resistance from him.

"Oh, I did not suggest you to retreat to the ship, ad'ika." He rummaged in his belt pouch for a moment before slapping a plasti-square into her palm.

"Bacta tape?", Aran questioned. And it was the good stuff, too. She recognized the brand logo.

"It's a miracle of modern medicine, really. You can cut it into any shape you desire, and it'll stay on tight even on blood-crusted and sweaty skin. Tried it myself more than once."

Aran stared at the gift in her hands, finding no words to address the other man. As the tense silence between them spread to an uncomfortable length, Sigun raked his gloved fingers through his silvery-white hair, admitting with a huff, "Look, I know I'm not exactly the kind of Mando you'd expect kindness from, but believe me when I say I'm just concerned for a vod."

One glance at his stricken, but honest face and Aran believed him. True, the man's change in behavior had thrown her off, but he was still part of their chosen troop, their wider aliit, so to speak. He may act unexpectedly on occasions, but she trusted him as a warrior of her buir's choice.

She nodded slowly, resisting the urge to turn away before applying a fitting piece of the medical tape to one of her blaster wounds. Sigun stood at her side the entire time it took to tend to her wounds, shielding her from any curious glances.

Somehow the silence between them didn't feel as uncomfortable anymore.

After she had finished, Aran offered Sigun the rest of the tape with an honest smile. "Vor entye, ner'vod."

The more experienced warrior acknowledged this with a curt nod, easily reestablishing a sensible distance between them. His face had long since reassembled into the emotionless mask he wore most of the time, before he turned to trot after their vode.

She didn't know what had induced this change of behavior, but she was glad the gruff warrior had warmed up to her. He seemed like the kind of man who'd be an excellent ba'vodu.

Aran remained in her place for a few moments longer than necessary, wondering why she'd never heard about any children of his from anyone. Not even his brother Sundavar had mentioned anything about nephews or nieces, at least not in her presence.

Weird. It was uncommon for a Mandalorian of his age to be without children. But maybe he wasn't the kind of man to raise his own and preferred to be the laid-back uncle to any one rambunctious kid of his aliit.

She shook her head, ending her meandering thoughts. She'd go and ask the experienced warrior later down the line, maybe over a hefty bowl of pirpaak. Right now more urgent matters were in need of her attention; their mission was far from finished.

As if on command, a harsh roar rang out, followed by a single blaster shot. Aran's pulse sped up, if just in momentary shock, and she gripped her carbine tighter.  
Her hearing may be damaged, but it still allowed her to pinpoint the source of the echoing shot to the central square of the camp. What in haran…

Nothing too bad could've happened; the camp had quite literally been taken over by the Mandalorians.

Still, her instincts told her to move, and as such she felt herself speed up into a run, reaching the square in the middle of the camp in mere moments.

Their troop had rounded up any rebel remnants in the space between the mess cabin and surrounding buildings, neatly sorted into rows of six each. The lucky survivors had been disarmed, their hands interlocked behind their heads in surrender. In the snow around the improvised prisoner camp stood half of their troop, the blank visors and aimed basters intimidating their prisoners into obedience. Like a deathwatch, they guarded the beat-down rebels with watchful eyes.

Aran came to a stop next to Sigun, who couldn't have arrived much earlier than her. He hadn't drawn his blaster, and neither had their fellow Mando'ade, so she guessed all was safe.

Across from them stood Uvai and Yusani, with the latter holding her smoking blaster against her shoulder in a relaxed fashion. Beneath her feet lay an unmoving Twi'lek, smoke rising from a hole in his upper torso. Aran spotted a woolen warmer covering each lekku to the tip.

Before she could even formulate a question, the other Twi'lek who'd kneeled right behind buir let off a piercing, almost animalistic shriek. "You killed my brother!"

Yusani half turned her body around to stare at the furious alien. "Ba'gedet'ye. He was an idiot anyway, trying to attack with the safety still on", she responded coolly.

The Twi'lek was speechless, if out of a lack of a proper response or anger Aran could not tell.

"Now let's get back to business, shall we?", Uvai addressed the fuming rebel. He readjusted the brass knuckles with a crack, reinforcing his inquiry with an unspoken threat of harm.

The wind had picked up again and Aran didn't quite feel the tip of her nose anymore. Urgh.

She sat her buy'ce on her head and instantly felt its temperature control thaw out her face. Worth every credit.

She glanced at the shivering alien just before Uvai prepared another punch. The Twi'lek already looked worn-out, but they'd sooner lose him to pneumonia if they didn't finish this shortly.

The impact cracked like a whip on the turquois cheek.

Aran narrowed her eyes. Uvai didn't hold back even slightly. This had to mean that he already knew the Twi'lek held no important intel, otherwise he wouldn't risk wasting their only source if one of his punches hit too hard. No, the beating served no other purpose than intimidation.

The Twi'lek would be the very first to go, but judging from the wide eyes and faster breathing the other rebels must've put two and two together by now. If their turquois buddy hit the ground and didn't come back up again, the Mandalorians would not stop there.

Uvai struck again and the Twi'lek hit the green-stained snow. The dull impact was overshadowed by a low curse in Mandalorian as Uvai had to manhandle almost a hundred kilo of barely conscious Twi'lek into a sitting position. The rough treatment elicited a pained groan, and Aran swore she heard the Wookie growl lowly. Even with her battered hearing she was able to discern it as a distraught sound, entirely unbefitting for a fierce creature like a Wookie.

"Quiet!", the maroon-armoured Bothan behind the Wookie reprimanded harshly. When his blaster connected with the Wookie's head it gave of a harsh growl, half-rising to bare his fangs at the Bothan in a threatening gesture.

Yusani stepped towards the furry alien, her beskad raised threateningly. The Wookie would've been able to look into her eyes, that's how tall it was even when half-kneeling. "I can make a nice fur coat out of you, mir'sheb, if you don't shut the fekkin haran up and get on the ground again."

The Wookie did neither respond, nor did it comply with the harsh order. Instead it just glanced over at the Twi'lek, who hung onto consciousness only by a thread judging from the way his head lolled to the side. If Uvai wasn't holding him up he would've surely crumbled into the snow by now. So much for 'unkillable', Aran chuckled darkly.

Yusani followed its' gaze to the turquois alien. She must've seen something in the Wookie's dark eyes, because suddenly her helmet tilted to the side in inquiry, and she lowered the curved beskad ever so slightly.

"Or do you have something to tell us?", she addressed the Wookie. It didn't react to her words besides an almost unnoticeable lowering of its' head.  
Something tells me Yu'buir got the big furry beast.

"You know, you could spare your pal over there quite some trouble", Yusani added, offering a little more rope everytime she addressed the kneeling giant. In turn, the Wookie stared back at buir's dark visor, its blank expression hinting at some process of contemplation behind those wild brown eyes.

Wookies lived in tight-knit family structures, quite similar to the Mandalorians' clans, if Aran remembered correctly. Way to go to aim at that band connecting the brothers in arms here, buir!

"This is taking too long." Uvai re-erected the slumped over Twi'lek shortly, obviously aiming at delivering the next -maybe final- strike. Green blood dripped down to stain the formerly spotless white.

His fist had not yet left its position by his side when the Wookie roared, throwing up its huge paws in distress.

Aran could hear the air of victory in her mother's voice. "Elek, I agree. Time to end this, my furry ner'vod."

This left her wondering where buir had snatched up Shyriiwook, but before long her mind was occupied with keeping an eye out for the dangerous brawler right in front of her beloved buir. Don't you try anything stupid, you shaggy mountain. No, what had Uvai called it? A 'walking carpet'? She sniggered internally at the term. Should be the standard for those.

Uvai lowered his fist, letting go of the Twi'lek now free to drop into the snow without anyone supporting him. Her vod gripped his right wrist, rolling the hand to relieve his bruised joint. Aran winced in shared pain. Punching soft tissue was one thing, but hitting rock-hard bone wasn't pleasant even with armoured gauntlets.

Aran was just about to comm Uvai privately to commiserate with him, when something in the corner of her field of view caught her attention. Before she had consciously processed the information, her carbine was already aiming straight at the chest of the single rebel suicidal enough to rise to his feet. Her mind had reacted to the visual stimulus without asking for her consent first, her heart hammering in her throat.

The battle-high had not worn off entirely as of yet, it seemed.

"Dini'la di'kut", she hissed at the man. He had to be crazy, because he didn't react to the dozens of rifles aimed at his body in the slightest.

"No!", he yelled at the Wookie, who appeared just as surprised as the rest of them.

"No, you cannot tell them anything, Tojjebacca! Do you really think these brutes will just let us go if you give them the information they want?" He spread out his arms, unfazed by the numerous orders of "Stand down" or "Shut up", reinforced by raised blasters.

"Why else would they have gathered us here? They need us to talk- so stay strong!" He finished by signifying individual men amongst those kneeling to his left and right, obviously trying to engineer a revolt.

Aran contemplated just shooting him- it would make this whole ordeal a lot easier. They couldn't really afford the intricate theatre Uvai had pulled off to lose all of its impact because of one man's five minutes of heroism.

She stopped short of pulling the trigger because of her buir's raised hand, tonelessly commanding them to lower their weapons. The challenger smiled thinly.

The would-be rebellion leader had guts, Aran had to admit that much. But it wouldn't last long. The man had just painted giant red crosshairs on his chest.

Yusani was already strutting towards the man, and she had that certain stiffness in her gait. Aran had seen it often enough; this was her preparing for the killing blow.

The man obviously expected some kind of verbal confrontation when the golden-clad warrior reached him. He was opening his mouth to spew some more inspirational phrases, no doubt, when Yusani whipped up her beskad and wordlessly stabbed him through the gut in one fluid motion.

The general murmur died down instantly, and the night was deathly silent again.

"Anyone else interested in offering a dashing speech?", Yusani mocked, the impaled rebel still standing in front of her gurgling up swells of warm blood.

You could've heard a needle drop to the ground, that's how silent it was.

"Didn't think so." Yusani dislodged the curved blade with a wet Shhhhikk. It glistened red in the artificial light of the camp.

The surrounding rebels parted like a swarm of fish in the sea to let her through. No one wanted to stand in her way after this decisive display of ruthlessness.

Yusani's kama swished on the way back towards the Wookie, her head held high in victory.

Two Mandalorians stepped up and manhandled the defeated Wookie into a building. The hard part was over- their enemy had been successfully broken, and now they only had to extract the info they needed like juice from a ripe exotic fruit.

Aran glanced at the star-speckled night sky. The system sun was still far from rising.

She grinned. This night was a success.

Before long, they had grilled the Wookie for the needed intel. It was almost funny how fast a sentient's resolve could crumble if he was shown his only two options: Cooperation or meaningless death.

Only four more bases existed to the alien's knowledge, three of them in the general jurisdiction of the other squads assigned by Fett.

This meant they had to contact the alor and consult about their further course of action before continuing. Only Jango Fett himself knew the details of the contract, so he had the power of decision.

But for now, they had done everything they'd needed to do.

Aran leaned against the mess cabin's raw brick wall, the carbine dangling from the sling over her shoulder. With nothing better to do she had spent the last half an hour inspecting the prisoners. Despite this planet's backwardness they were a surprisingly diverse group of sentients. A few Sullustans were sprinkled throughout the rows of rebels, and together with the Wookie, the two Twi'lek brothers and a set of exotic Rhodians she'd counted five different species overall. Humans made up the vast majority of the insurgents.  
They'd stayed on their knees like good little prisoners, for now. Most didn't even dare raise their eyes at the anonymous t-visors positioned all around them. She imagined it be quite intimidating for aruetiise to be surrounded by a stoic wall of silence. Little did they know of the constant chatter flooding the general comm channel, most of which were groans at the incredibly bad jokes uttered by one of the younger warriors.

"Urgh", she ground out in annoyance. The itch on her chin she'd tried to ignore for the past minute forced her to take off her helmet. The young warrior had just chattered about two Jedi entering a Hutt bordell, when Aran took off the buy'ce, cutting her connection to the jokester. She wasn't too unhappy about that- the jokes had gotten more lowbrow by the minute.  
Fresh air flooded her lungs. Aran coughed, eager to eliminate the itch to put her helmet on as quickly as possible. The freezing cold bit into her unprotected skin.  
Aran didn't notice the man watching her at first. Only his startled, half-whispered "There are teenagers in their ranks?" caught her attention. She turned her head, staring irritably at the dark-haired human. He in turn shook his head, muttering, "Just when I though these barbarians couldn't get anymore wretched…"  
"You got a problem, chakaar?", she hissed. She was sharply reminded of her wounds when the carbine clattered against her hip, but forcefully refrained from showing any reaction. She was not going to flinch in front of this rebel.  
The man raised his arms in surrender. "Not another word, or I'll show you just how wretched I can be", Aran growled. She was not going to let this pitiful excuse for a man insult her aliit.

Another Mandalorian stepped up to them and put his hand on her shoulder. "Retract your claws, Viszla-dire-kitty", the jokester piped up, his voice sounding much older now through the voice distortion of his external speakers. "I heard you Viszla were hot-headed, but try not to look like you'd launch another Death Watch right here and now, alright, ner'vod?"  
For some reason his words infuriated her more than the unwanted touch. "If you don't get your fingers off me I'll be sure to add them to my personal collection, ner'vod." Her words were laced with enough poison to drop a fully-grown bantha.  
Aran was bristling. He had absolutely no business talking to her from above like this; she was as much a True Mandalorian warrior as him.

"Udesii, ad'ika", Sigun remarked carefully from beside her. "Put away that knife. It's not worth it."  
Gathering all of her strength, Aran put on her helmet and complied. The jokester should watch his step, though. You didn't just insult Clan Viszla and got away with it.  
The snow crunched under his boots as he trotted away. Sigun had encouraged him not too kindly to just scatter, if he didn't want to eat her fist sandwich. It turned out she had been lucky to have found another warrior she could count on in him. Whatever had caused his newfound openness, she was not going to complain.  
The older warrior looked distractedly at something above her head for a moment before returning his gaze to her. He frowned, the corners of his mouth turned downwards.  
In an attempt to alleviate the mood, Aran quipped, "Kebiin."The other raised his eyebrow.  
"Reliability", Aran emphasized. "It really suits you."  
Sigun just stared at her.

As the silence stretched between them she realized there was no point in trying to uphold a conversation. Sigun's usual demeanor of closed-off lone wolf had settled back in place.  
Whatever troubling thoughts were crossing his mind at the moment, he sure was not susceptible to smalltalk at the moment. Aran didn't know. Either way, she decided to let him be- he'd helped her enough already. He shall have his moment of peace and quiet.  
Aran clapped his shoulder, muttering, "Vor'e" under her breath before turning towards the building they currently used as their improvised mission control center.

The cold wind picked up, whirling particles of snow and ice through the camp. She wiped her gloved hand over her visor, silently cursing the harsh climate on the Outer Rim planet.

Despite her annoyance Aran felt a smile tug at the corner of her mouth when she caught sight of Uvai. He had recovered from the detonation, it seemed. The heavy weight of guilt lifted ever so slightly from her chest.  
His body wasn't as tense anymore, and Uvai didn't hold his torso in a relieving posture. But, his features were in disarray. Uvai was just examining his battered helmet. "This is going to be expensive to fix, isn't it?", Aran winced. The visor was badly affected, not to mention the nonexistent red colour.

Uvai sighed. "There go my hard-earned credits."

Aran took off her helmet as well, scratching an itch behind her ear. "Ah, come on. It could be worse, ner'vod'ika."

"Did I mention that the Wookie broke my vambrace's vibroblade mechanism too?" He presented his arm plate - the blade wouldn't eject.

"Osik", she ground out, reminded once again of the wounds she had acquired during that fight. Better cover that up quickly, or I'll not hear the end of it. She stealthily moved to cradle her helmet in the right arm, hopefully blocking any visual he might've gotten on the bacta tape covering her side. Sigun's admonishing words echoed in her ears. Yes, yes, I will see a medic. Eventually.  
Returning her focus on Uvai perched on a crate in front of her, she added jovially, "But this job's surely gonna make up for it, so don't let your head hang, ner'vod."

Uvai nodded, not quite as enthusiastic as she would've wanted. She grimaced, still feeling guilty for nearly turning him into dust with her bad aim earlier. She knew he'd never blame her, but that only made it worse.  
The other warrior picked at his ruined vambrace, but it was of no use. The circuitry was beyond repair.

No time for sulking now, Aran decided and flicked him against his ear playfully. The following sound of indignation made her chuckle. "Oh, you didn't forget the prank war, did you, my dear Uv'ika?"

There was no better time to start it up again than right now. He needed the distraction, she could do for some stress relief, and a wild Dha Verda Werda was not an option for them at the moment. And who knew when she'd get her next chance? She didn't want to wait a whole week before making his very existence hell. Although I'll probably hold up with the Riimur-chili pulver until we're back on the Jaster's Legacy. This way the entire crew can feast on the sight of a distressed Uvai.

Aran was just leaning in for another flick against her vod's nose, when the Wookie was escorted towards the bunched up and kneeling rebels in the square behind them. It was nudged forward by Sigun and the grey-clad Mando from earlier, in its arms the Twi'lek.

Aran stepped aside to let them pass.

The alien's banged up face had swollen to one big purple bruise.

Next to her Uvai scratched his dirty blonde beard and continued massaging his right wrist, not even sparing the disarmed aliens a glance. He had done a good job in turning the Twi'lek's face into mush.

The Wookie itself looked beaten, but not in a physical way. A woman behind her whistled when she spotted the Twi'lek's ruined face. "Ouch."

Aran couldn't hold in a taunt of her own. "Heh, pissed off the wrong Gouvernour, didn't you?"

The smugness was wiped right out of her face by Yu'buir, though. "Silence!"

She had followed behind Sigun, now positioned in front of her daughter, her stance berating. "Never, under any circumstances, must you reveal your contractor's name, title or any information that might lead to his identity. It's one of the elementary principles of our mercenary work. You should know better."

Aran lowered her head in shame at her mistake. Buir's admonishment was rightful; she did know better. But instead of using her mirshe for once she had decided to open her mouth. And there was no taking back the words. A Mandalorian couldn't allow for such a simple mistake, even when victory was almost certain. It could and would come back to bite you in the shebs.

Aran had screwed up another time today. This was unacceptable.

Aran didn't dare making eye contact with Yusani; too great was the fear of seeing the disappointment in those experienced eyes. She felt Uvai's hand on her shoulder, giving her the strength she needed not to sink into the ground in shame.

Fortunately she had a reason to step aside after the prisoners had been marched away, settling into the midst of their shivering allies in the square.

Yusani's portable holoprojector beeped, indicated an incoming transmission. Her golden armour was speckled with tiny dots of red.

She moved into a corner and answered the call. "Su'cuy, Mand'alor."

As one person Sigun, Uvai and three other Mandalorians had moved in to restrict the prisoner's view on the projector with their bodies. They didn't need to hear nor see their alor.

"Su'cuy", Jango Fett's flickering hologram greeted them. "Do you have the intel we need?"

Always straight to the point. Jango Fett was ordinarily not a man of bombastic speeches, at least not during missions.

Yusani nooded. "Confirmed."

"Jate. Send the coordinates over to me, I'll cross-check them."

A curt nod from Uvai informed them he was on it. Meanwhile Yu'buir gave their alor a quick rundown of the operation. Aran was surprised to hear that no one had been injured. Well, except for my dikut'la self. This was her punishment for being overly cocky, she knew.

She glanced back at the prisoners. They had been rounded up, forming a tight bunch of scared and shivering winter cloaks. Only the Wookie had no problem with the cold climate, obviously owing this to his thick fur. Bits and pieces of snow speckled the dark brown fur, frost holding tightly onto each strand of thick hair.

Their plan had worked as expected, safe for the butchered slicing of the transmitter, that is. Fett did not comment on that unfortunate circumstance, though. Just like any soldier he knew no plan survived hard contact.

Aran watched their leader cross his arms, face without the slightest hint at emotion.  
At the end of the rapport Fett had turned towards someone by his side out of the transmitter's reach, discussing the coordinates they had acquired from the willing Wookie. But his dark eyes held a fire in them which she hadn't seen for a long time. She wondered idly what might dominate the Mand'alor's mind nowadays.  
Perhaps he thought back to his adoptive father, reflecting on how Mereel would have wanted him to lead the Mandalorians to greatness after the devastating civil war. Perhaps he was already imagining the vicious attack on the Kyr'tsad, the revenge for his father's murder he'd long since waited for. Or maybe Fett, a pragmatic man through and through, just focused all of his body and mind on the task at hand. The rebels had to go up in flames before they were able collect their pay-check, after all. The Mandalorian splinter group warranted eradication in the True Mandalorians' eyes, but not even pure Mandalorian will would make their ships fly when they'd run out of fuel with no money to buy some.

A tall Mandalorian in sand-coloured beskargam approached their little impromptu group of co-conspirators. It was Ray'li, judging from the little horns sticking out of his buy'ce. "No more stragglers in the camp, alor'ad", the ill-tempered Zabrak informed Yusani curtly.

She acknowledged this wordlessly before turning to face Fett.

"The coordinates check out", Fett announced. "We'll regroup at the rendezvous point first, then deal with the other rebel nests."

"What about the prisoners?" Aran raised her eyebrows. She hadn't thought about that. She looked back over her shoulder at the rows of shivering humanoids, their frosty breaths condensating before their very faces. They couldn't just take them to the RV, but leaving them behind wasn't an option either.

Fett's eyes were hard as steel when he spoke. "The client has made clear he wishes no prisoners to be taken."

Even buir raised her eyes at that. But she would comply. She was a professional, after all. "I understand."

"See you at the RV. Fett out." The hologram flickered into oblivion.

None of the older warriors moved at first. Yu'buir broke the spell with her usual forwardness, the black soot around her eyes giving her the aura of a madman. "You heard the alor. Let's get to work."

Aran sealed her buy'ce in preparation. The instruction had been crystal clear.

As she picked up her pace to fall into step with the other warriors, she heard Sigun mumble. "A Republic gouvernour giving us the clearance, no, the order for outright slaughter? Shab, that's a new one, even for me." He tapped his silver-trimmed helmet incredulously. The man walking stiffly next to him shook his head, grunting noncommittally.

Neither of the others chose to comment on that. Aran didn't either; she had already learned her lesson today.

Yusani relayed the alor's order to the others via helmet to helmet comm. No use in startling the prisoners just yet. Still, it evoked more confusion amongst the them. It was so… weirdly atypical for the moralizers of the Galactic Republic.

The Mandalorians guarding the prisoners wordlessly formed a pincer behind the clueless rebels in preparation.

Now they were able to cut off any exits and simultaneously avoided accidental friendly fire by moving all allies to one side. This finally elicited some kind of reaction from the rebel remnants.

"What are you doing?", one of the older prisoners asked, his voice already higher in pitch. Fear.  
"Why are you so quiet all of a sudden?" His agitation quickly passed on to the other prisoners, but there was nothing they could do. They were stuck in between the buildings and a unitary wall of beskargam. Panic.

Uvai moved to stand next to her, though she couldn't quite read his pose. He muttered something and shook his head, but Aran caught only the end. Something like, 'this smells of osik'? She couldn't be sure. Her ears were failing her again, the ringing not quite resolved yet. Now she knew why buir had kept her from explosives til now.

She hadn't even lived two decades yet and was already suffering from acoustic shock. Wayii, just what I needed.  
Despite her attempt at chasing it off via a train of thought less laden with tension, the decisively bad feeling in the pit of her stomach was ever increasing.  
Aran's neck muscles strained. There was something off about all of this.

The insurgents' agitation had reached a critical point. Aran spotted the Wookie roaring angrily, inching ever closer to the Mandalorians there.  
She was just about to warn them, when the order came.

A hail of plasma ploughed through the defenseless insurgents, mowing down each and every one in their way. Some dropped down dead immediately, others were hit multiple times and shrieked ghoulishly, adrenaline making their bodies stay upright despite the spasms caused by the bolts. Screams and animalistic yowls filled the bitterly cold night, but the shooting did not stop.  
Aran had lost count of how many of her bolts had hit or grazed a man. She just emptied her magazine, and when the click told her the power cell had no shots left, the wave of plasma ended.

It was over quickly.

She lowered the smoking barrel in unison with the others. The square was littered with bodies. One, two, three on top of each other, next to each other, covering another body- it was a mess.  
There were no more wisps of frozen air, rising peacefully into the sky. Just silence, overwhelming her senses even more than the cacophony of blaster fire had done.

Aran broke away from the picture of merciless slaughter, the evidence of their obedience and adherence to the Mandalorian codex. She would deal with the unfamiliar gnawing in her stomach later.

She turned towards Uvai, her throat suddenly dry. He looked at her without uttering a word. Instead he just placed a hand on her shoulder. Her imagination must've run wildly, because it almost felt like his armoured hand was shaking.

"You feeling sorry for the aruetiise scum?", the man next to them sneered before roughly shoving Aran, which earned him a ruffle from Uvai. "Coopani mirshmure'cye, vod?", the experienced warrior growled. The other man had no answer to that.

Aran paid him no mind. He was probably still high on adrenaline; that stuff sometimes rocked a man the wrong way if it was combined with a decent amount of ale or stims.

Uvai trailed the man's back with his eyes, his hand never leaving Aran's shoulder. "Let's get this job finished, ner'vode." He shook his head once, then squeezed her shoulder before shouldering his rifle and turning towards buir. He seemed… troubled.

Aran had not seen this side of him in a long time.  
"He and I share the same bad feeling", Sigun said without prompting. He must've seen her tipped helmet and interpreted it correctly as worry.  
"From the moment Fett relayed the mission details I had the feeling something's not right about this job, and this only confirms my suspicion." He indicated the bodies strewn apart behind them.

They both kept silent for a while, and Aran felt her gaze drift over to the corpses. Indeed. As far as she knew an outright execution order was much too decisive and brutal for the office sitters of the oh-so morally superior Republic. This… was quite atypical for a Galactic Republic official.  
"But", Sigun began anew, "I guess this is just the way some people are."  
Aran nodded. They were mercenaries hired to do what their client demanded. They weren't paid to think or question someone's motives.  
This was, in the end, just another job. Nothing more, nothing less.

They parted and Aran turned towards the square littered with corpses. The cacophony of dozens of blasters firing simultaneously still echoed harshly in her ears. Or maybe it was just a tinnitus, she didn't know for sure anymore. Aran loaded a new power cell, cocked the carbine and searched for survivors.

Most other Mando'ade had left the square by now to place fuel and gasoline at strategic positions around the snowed-in camp. The mission had been the termination of any and all rebel activity, and this included destroying any chance for them to rebuild their network.  
While she waded through the sea of bodies Aran looked for a face that wasn't damaged by blaster fire, or stared at her through lifeless eyes, but there was nothing to find. She was a lonely Raltiir-tiger, looking for bovids among the cold waves of the ocean.

At one point she came across the Twi'lek's body. A single bolt to the chest had ended his misery, though she doubted he'd even realized what was coming beforehand. Uvai had messed him up quite thoroughly with the brass knuckles.  
What a shame. The stubbornness with which he had clung to life and the defiance in the face of defeat had marked him as excellent Mandalorian material. Perhaps, if she had intervened, they could have formed a trusted comrade out of him.  
Absorbed in her musings she had mentally considered her search finished and strode towards the mess cabin. The current direction had been chosen by her stomach in on its own. Maybe they'd have anything worth of looting left in there.

After a few minutes of rummaging through the rundown cabins and lockers that might've been bought during the age of the Old Republic, judging from their outdated look, she had acquired two meat rolls and a pocket full of credits. It wasn't anything high value, really, but worth taking nonetheless.  
She decided to spare one of the rolls for later use, carefully storing it in one of her belt pouches before digging into the other meat roll. It was delicious.  
They were nothing but incompetent farmers playing rebels and would've been wiped out sooner or later, but they'd had excellent cooking skills at their command. That much she had to grant these di'kute, dead as they were.  
Aran licked her lips, almost reaching for the second meat roll left over. Almost.  
The chatter still flooding the general comm channel reminded her of her required presence. They were only mere minutes from leaving this dump.

Her stomach growled again. Aran pulled a face. She didn't have anything left to eat, and she was determined to conserve the meatroll for later. She could always ask one of the other warriors for some dried meat, but if one of them so much as mentioned gihaal…. Bile rose to her throat, and her body involuntarily shook in disgust. She'd never understood how some of her vode could force down half a dozen strips in the span of mere minutes. The smell, the flavor- it was like a punishment for those who didn't bring proper mission-nourishment with them.

She was left with only one last option. Aran sighed. Argh, here comes the nutrient bar.  
Tasted like flimsipaper and shared the texture as well, especially when it mixed with saliva. The bars were only edible with some dried cambylictus berries. Luckily she had thought of carrying them with her, in case of emergency. And this was one, that was for sure.  
Aran rustled through the belt pouch with delight, already lusting for the sweet taste of the camby berries. They were one of the few vices her mother had passed onto her. Native to the Republic planet Naboo buir had one day brought a handful home after a successful job, and the fruit had since been Aran's favourite delicacy.  
She produced two of the dried, pinkish berries and chucked one into her mouth together with a piece of the nutrition bar. Delicious.

She clasped the forest green helmet under her arm and stepped outside. The mass of corpses to her left was ignored by the other members of their troop moving about, there was nothing left to do with the lifeless bodies in their eyes. The individual souls would pass on into the manda, the body was all but a vessel according to ancient Mandalorian belief. If you adhered to the Mandalorian lifestyle, that is. Dar'manda dead were irrevocably gone- lost in the vortex of spacetime and forgotten forever.

Aran rubbed at a scratch on the helmet's cheeck plate, her sweaty face mirrored in the visor's blank surface. The pace of her heart picked up whenever she glanced at the bodies strewn across. This had been her very first time. The first time she had any idea of how it must've been during the old days, when the Mandalorians had been overrunning entire systems in the crusades, slaughtering their enemies in battle after merciless battle.

She cleared her throat. It was terribly cold still.

Aran wasn't sure how she felt about this. She'd only heard about Mandalore's past in bits and pieces, never getting into too many details. She knew the Mandalorian Crusades had spawned an era of Galactic conflict, though, an era filled with fighting so intense that it cemented the Mandalorians' almost legendary infamy for millenia. Genocides hadn't been too uncommon during that age.  
She withheld another glance at the humanoid forms, instead imagining a united Mandalore strong enough to take on the Galaxy in all-out war.  
This she could confirm without a doubt as a thought evoking strong feelings of nostalgia for something neither her nor the dozens of generations beforehand had ever even experienced. It was a traitorous thought, she knew. Jaster Mereel and with him the entirety of his followers had channeled their predecessors' need for a united Mandalore after they had been forcefully disbanded by their victorious opponents- at least as far as it had been possible in the realm of current Galactic affairs. This had preceeded the creation of the True Mandalorians. But just the thought of Mandalorians once again pushing outwards without a single fleeting thought wasted on the Republic and its Judicial Forces- it made her long for times she had never known.

Aran watched a Bothan Mandalorian place some leftover gasoline next to a building. He'd spend the last minutes calculating the weakest point to ensure the building would collapse entirely after they blew up the charges.  
Aran's glance brushed over the fallen figures once more. Aruetiise certainly would have insisted on a burial.  
But there really was no-one to advocate their right to a burial according to their beliefs and rites here. The imminent make-do cremation had to suffice.

She exited through the still intact door -what an impressive piece of architecture!- and immediately her eyes were drawn to a bunch of beskargam, huddled together to her right near the mess cabin. Sticking out amongst them was Uvai's torched red armour.

The men surrounding him burst out laughing when she approached. "What's so funny?", she inquired eagerly, still munching on the bar. A woman dressed in excellently-crafted yellow beskargam stumbled her way, tears in her eyes.  
The raven-haired woman opened her mouth twice but couldn't bring herself to utter more than a few grunts before turning away wheezing. Instead she pointed her finger at the midst of the chuckling mass of Mandalorians, few doing anything to cover their laughing, tear-streaked faces. One even had to bite his hand to not go all out again, but Aran's undignified "What?!" send him straight over the edge chuckling.

In the center of the half circle, propped up on a crate like a bad-tempered doll on display, sat an older version protocol droid. He wore a crème-coloured pointed hat, obviously taken from one of the rebels and repurposed for this immature gag. Its light receptors flickered irregularly, obviously the droid's mainframe couldn't keep up with what was happening around it. The tiny motors in its lower half whirred helplessly, pleading for them to stop this madness at once.

Aran couldn't help it. When he made eye contact with her again, its vocabulator O-shaped like a little child's indignant display of grumpiness, she burst out laughing. She tried to hold it in, but everytime she looked at the droid, sitting there on a crate moving its head unit sloppily from side to side, the urge took her over again.  
It was idiotic, immature and not at all befitting for hardened warriors, but that didn't stop them.

Any aruetiise observing must've thought them crazy. An hour ago they'd been clearing out the camp in a precise and swift strike, and now here they stood, laughing at something so banal it might very well have stemmed from a bad holovid.

No wonder they think we're savages.

The droid obviously had enough of it and tried removing itself from the crate via its arms, but the tik tik tik resounding from its central unit spoke of its inability to do anything besides staring at them. The single uttered, sluggish syllable of "HELP" only made them laugh harder.

Aran relished the carefreeness of her brethren. It was a good counterpart to the pressure of the fight. They had all made it through alive and relatively unharmed, and that was what counted in the end.  
She glanced at Uvai who was now supervising another Mando's effort of granting the droid just enough mobility to topple into the snow face-first. It was going to be rendered to a hulk of useless metal trash at some point, if those two kept at it; that much was sure.

At least Aran now had the assurance that her dear vod was alright. His visor was still bearing the scars of the fight, but Uvai didn't hold his body quite as stiff anymore. And if he was ready to throw around playful insults like that he most certainly felt better.

"Oy, vode! It's time to pack up", the grey-clad Mando from earlier yelled at them, ending their short moment of comradery. He indicated they should hurry up and get over to the gathering point with his armoured hand, gesturing sharp and militaristically. In the distance a metallic object neared their position at a reasonable velocity. Squinting, Aran was just able to make it out against the star-speckled background of the galaxy.

She slung her carbine over her shoulder and fell in line next to Uvai, all the while angling her right side away from him. He glanced at her once, his eyes clouded still by underlying worry, before smiling in an attempt at reassurance. He cut off any chance at further interpreting his behavior by putting his banged-up helmet over his head. Aran noted that as something to deal with decisively later. Perhaps Sigun would be kind enough to shine some more light on the entire situation.  
For now all they had left to do was to secure their equipment and follow their vode. Time to leave this dirt-hole behind.

The booming of the thrusters had her cover her ears as she raised her head to inspect the incoming craft more carefully. The black and gold Mythosaur skull smack in the middle of the shuttle's star- and portside hull identified it as one of the shuttles belonging to the Jaster's Legacy. Aran would recognize that paint job anywhere.  
She raised her left hand to protect her face from the sudden wind. Snow whirled all around them as the pilot steadied the shuttle above the camp, the sublight engines' roar taking what was left of Aran's hearing right with it. She felt the low-frequency more than hear it, when the pilot quickly reduced thrust to land.

They spread out at the camps outermost borders, moving on autopilot to cover the flanks. Uvai crouched next to a leafless shrub, staring through the rear sight of his rifle at the darkness of the woods across. The bruises of his chest by being thrown into a wall repeatedly had all but worn off, it seemed.  
Aran glanced around, looking for the familiar gold-and-black paintjob of her buir. Yusani leaned against the wall a few dozens meters to her left; it was about the height at which Uvai and her had entered the camp, before their scouting mission had become a little hectic. I wonder if the snow's still painted red over there.

Yusani's gesticulation and the movement of her helmet indicated she was in vivid comm contact with someone. Just a second later the rear hatch of the shuttle opened, and the matte-grey ramp lowered onto the untouched snow. The Mando'ad holding onto the safety strap leaned out, motioning for them to proceed. They sorted into groups of five without thinking much about it, each group falling into a light jog to make the distance faster.  
They were finished here, at last. Her mistakes fortunately hadn't cost a vod's life, nor had she gotten off too badly.  
All in all, she considered this part of the job a success.

Snow whirled around them, alternating between digging into her face with leashes of frosty daggers and whipping against her armour vehemently. Aran's group was the last to cross the clearing.

As soon as her snow-slick boots touched the ramp, Yusani gave the pilot a sign. The sublight thrusters powered up immediately, quickly lifting them into the clear night with a characteristic roar. Aran's helmet clacked against her back plate when she grabbed onto the safety net, glad to have thought of securing the thing to her belt beforehand. The pilot held them in position above the insurgent camp, still lit up like a small village against the darkness on all sides.  
Yusani turned towards her and Aran hastily angled her body's right side out of view. She was going to ask one of their medics for something a little less obvious than the snow-white bacta-tape, later.  
"Do you want to have the honour?", buir asked, pride giving her voice a melodious crackle. She offered Aran a detonator.  
Aran grinned from ear to ear. Whether she wanted to have the honour to blow up the compound and finish this rebel base once and for all? Haran, yes!

She eagerly took the small device out of her mother's hand and turned towards the campsite. All around her she could feel helmeted heads turning. No self-respecting Mando was going to say 'no' to some fireworks.

Aran pressed the small button without further ado, feeling an immense pressure lifted off her chest by the act. The bright explosion and following pressure wave that ensued rocked the shuttle, though the pilot had no trouble stabilizing the well-used craft. Aran felt the heat burn on her face. The fireball expanded outwards, blowing over buildings like doll houses, eradicating any trace of the former base. A shiver ran down her spine at the sight. How much shabla thermal dets had they used?!

Yusani patted her shoulder, then turned towards the men and women in the shuttle's bay. "A job well-done, vode. Oya!"  
She was met with the expected roar of victory, dozens of fists raised in unity.

Aran returned her gaze to the burning remnants below them, the honest grin not quite vanished from her face yet. Her chest was swollen with pride. In her excitement she didn't notice Uvai's thin smile and balled fist, or the perpetually deepening frown on Sigun's worn face.  
In her opinion this had really been a job well-done. She couldn't wait for the next fight, the adrenaline still bubbling in her veins. Her hands were trembling with excitement.  
The insurgents have really crossed the wrong gouvernour, she chuckled inwardly. He had sent the Mandalorians after them, after all.

"Ke nu'jurkadir sha Mando'ade!", she bellowed into the once peaceful night air, now tainted by smoke and soot.

And off to the next battle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Su'cuy, vode! Here come the next chapter.
> 
> There's not much left to say other than please review and tell me what you like/dislike. It'll help me improve my style and make the story more believable. If anyone requires translations I suggest the website www. mandoa . org. It provides excellent translations for phrases and simple words, should be no trouble figuring out the meaning behind unfamiliar words.
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> I'm hopeful that my inspiration will enable more numerous updates in the coming time.
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> Have a merry Christmas time and enjoy the time with your family, your aliit. This bond is most important to a healthy life, and very much Mandalorian in nature.
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> Until then- Ret'!

**Author's Note:**

> _Su'cuy, ner'vode! _Here I am with another plot bunny who up until now never saw the light of day. I personally prefer stories not focusing on Jedi or Sith once in a while. We've got enough of that in Canon, so here goes to the _Mando'ade _! If there's any questions concerning the vocabulary, I recommend www.mandoa.org or any website really that provides Mandalorian translations. Most of the words used are swear words whose meaning is concludable from context, and anyone familiar with the Republic Commando-novels by Karen Traviss will have no trouble at all with understanding the characters in this story. If there's trouble still, don't hesitate to message me! I'll gladly provide a translation. Props go to everyone who can guess where the title comes from ;)_  
>  Have fun and _Oya Manda _!_____
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> _For anyone wondering, this Story has been posted on Fanfiction.net first. I re-uploaded it here because I switched to this platform.______  
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